Cody Fern's 'Closing Night' Debuts at TIFF With Paulson, Watts, Wiest — SkimNews
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- Cody Fern made his feature directorial debut with 'Closing Night,' which world-premiered in the Toronto Film Festival's Special Presentations section and was compared in the review to Douglas Sirk-style 'women's films' of the 1950s.
- Sarah Paulson stars as Broadway star Sandra Vale, who refuses to accept an early dementia diagnosis and invites her estranged family to her play's opening night, where she collapses on stage and triggers a cascade of family revelations.
- Naomi Watts plays Sandra's eccentric, unbalanced sister April, while Dianne Wiest plays vitriolic matriarch Grandma Diane, a small-town beauty parlor owner whose arrival unleashes decades of suppressed lies; the review calls Wiest 'simply dynamite.'
- The supporting cast includes Toby Wallace as April's son Theo — who is unknowingly about to learn hard truths about his family — and Odessa A'zion as his 'clueless' girlfriend Lucy, described as possibly pregnant.
- The screenplay is credited to Cody Fern and Devon Bostick; the film runs 1 hour 55 minutes, with sales handled by CAA (U.S.) and Mk2 (international).
- Fern met Paulson while producing 'American Horror Story,' and the review emphasizes that the movie offers rare, go-for-broke female roles the reviewer argues Hollywood largely stopped making.
- Producers are Nancy Grant, Rosalie Chicoine Perreault, Will Howarth, and Matilda Comer, per the credits block in the review.
Why it matters: The film lands three of Hollywood's most decorated actresses — Paulson, Watts, and Wiest — in the kind of soapy, female-driven melodrama the review argues has largely vanished from studio slates, giving each a rare showcase role. Because CAA and Mk2 are handling sales, the TIFF premiere functions as a global launchpad for distribution deals rather than a purely prestige event.
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