Cody Fern's 'Closing Night' Debuts at TIFF With Paulson, Watts, Wiest — SkimNews
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- Cody Fern made his directorial debut with "Closing Night," which world-premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in the Special Presentations section, with a screenplay co-written by Fern and Devon Bostick.
- Sarah Paulson stars as Broadway star Sandra Vale, who is in denial about early signs of dementia and invites her estranged family to her play's opening night, triggering a cascade of long-buried secrets.
- Naomi Watts plays Sandra's eccentric, unbalanced sister April, while Dianne Wiest plays their vitriolic grandmother Diane, who runs a small-town beauty parlor and arrives to "really stir things up" with more family secrets.
- The reviewer compared the film to 1950s Douglas Sirk melodramas like "Imitation of Life" and "Magnificent Obsession," calling it the kind of soapy, female-driven drama that "they just don't make anymore" and praising the trio for playing "this dysfunctional family dynamic to the hilt."
- The film runs 1 hour 55 minutes, is being sold internationally by CAA (U.S.) and Mk2 (International), and is produced by Nancy Grant, Rosalie Chicoine Perreault, Will Howarth, and Matilda Comer.
Why it matters: Fern's debut lands three Oscar-caliber actresses — Paulson, Watts, and Wiest — in a rare, soapy, female-led melodrama, a genre the reviewer notes Hollywood has largely abandoned; with CAA and Mk2 handling sales, the TIFF premiere positions the film to secure distribution and potentially revive the vehicle for mature, tour-de-force female performances.
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