Imagine someone loves you so much they build a castle shrine in your honor while you’re living and continue on after you’ve gone? That doesn’t entirely sum up artist and mascot maker Alan St. George, but it’s the main point of this story. You’ll never physically meet his wife, Adrianne St. George, but you’ll feel like you have after watching the uniquely beautiful and sorrowful “Adrianne and The Castle.”
“She taught me how to love, and be loved.”
A fantastical documentary-musical (directed by Shannon Walsh), “Adrianne and The Castle,” is a sweet look into a grand love story that doesn’t feel real, but it is. It existed and it exists and we’re all witnesses to it.
Walsh does a wonderful job balancing the real world details of the St. George love story and the fantasy world they created for each other, complete with art, performances, and fashion. Through reenactments and personal home videos, the film takes you into Adrianne and Alan’s epic story from the beginning where they met (when Alan was only 13!) through Adrianne’s unfortunate passing and to the present where Alan continues to create in her memory.
Making art and being art itself
The Rococo style of Havencrest Castle is breathtaking and the camerawork (Director of Photography Pablo Alvarez-Mesa) allows the audience to slowly drink it all in, and doesn’t bombard you all at once, because it could get overwhelming. “If architecture is frozen music, in our house, it’s like frozen opera,” Alan said.
Paired with Alan’s own gorgeous paintings in different rooms, Adrianne’s dolls and Victorian-inspired fashion sense, the castle feels less like a place to live and more like a museum to incredible artwork.
Adrianne’s costumes, the way she walked and styled her hair made her a brilliantly unique person. This posed a challenge for Walsh and Alan to figure out how to represent her best in the documentary and they nailed it. Styling mannequins in her dresses with masked actors in her clothes moving ethereally through the space only added to the infusion of fantasy and reality that makes this film so special.
“Reality is for those who lack imagination.”
While highlighting Adrianne’s stage and indie movie performances, Walsh and Alan showcase the casting process for the reenactment of their love. Impressed by different actresses’ being so inspired by his late wife, Alan was encouraged to allow Adrianne be represented by one of things she loved most: acting.
The documentary takes all of the things that make Alan and Adrianne special and amplifies it with fever-dream-like sequences of mascots and cheerleaders performing, interspersed with bittersweet moments of Alan speaking about their families disowning them and the grief that has engulfed him, yet still connects him to his great love.
Final thoughts
“Adrianne and The Castle” is a poignant tale of a grand love between two special people that almost doesn’t feel real. It’s wistful, intimate, and aesthetically astounding to look at. By the end of it, it feels like you’ve known these people your whole life.
WATCH: Inside the Making of ‘Adrianne & The Castle’ with Shannon Walsh and Alan St. George (available on VOD on December 5, 2025)
Inventive and whimsical, “Adrianne and The Castle” is a true story of great love and loss. Alan St. George is a mascot-maker and artist in rural Illinois who hand-made an ornate castle with his late wife Adrianne. Since her death in 2006 he continues to put the finishing touches on Havencrest Castle, which stands as a “temple” dedicated to their transcendent love, and the creation of a truly authentic life.
Acclaimed filmmaker Shannon Walsh (The Gig Is Up, Illusions Of Control) collaborates with Alan to tell his and Adrianne’s fairytale love story through fantastical musical re-enactments. In so doing, Alan grapples with his profound grief, revealing with lucidity and extraordinary candor his struggle to find a way forward without the love of his life.
Writer and editor