Sarah Paulson. Naomi Watts. Dianne Wiest. We can conclude this review right there, can’t we?
Cody Fern’s impressive directorial debut is about a lot of things: reconciliation, confronting death, family, regret. There is something baked into the screenplay and direction, though, that I couldn’t shake and that is the unadulterated adoration of women–both on screen and off. We could probably surmise why Fern wanted to make a mark in this kind of melodrama (paging Douglas Sirk…), but that love of actresses and the women who play them allows Closing Night to blur the line between reality and fiction. With its bold colors and even higher emotions, Fern translates his sharp screenplay (co-written with Devon Bostick) into something lovingly, enthrallingly dramatic.
The literal version of an actress belongs to Sarah Paulson’s Sandra Vale, a performer in rehearsals for a production of Mother Courage, a Brechtian anti-war play that has been produced with legends like Kathleen Turner and Meryl Streep and adapted by other legends like David Hare and Tony Kushner. In rehearsals and previews, Sandra begins to forget her lines, but she insists that she won’t allow her understudy to go on for her since she has never missed a performance. Sandra’s sister, Naomi Watt’s April, comes to the city to visit her son, Toby Wallace’s Theo and his girlfriend, Odessa A’zion’s Lucy, and she discovers a positive pregnancy test in their bathroom. She slips the test (and a random hairbrush) in to her purse, and we soon learn that April suffers from severe panic attacks. Hey, we all do small things to feel in control, right?
The first moment that I knew that I was locked into Closing Night‘s paces was when April and Theo attend Sandra’s show, and at the play’s start, Fern zooms the lens in on Paulson’s face. The mixture of music, blue and red coloring, and connection to the camera create a dramatic, almost camp allure. Right after Sandra makes a stumble in her speech, she collapses on stage, and after a worrisome cognitive test, she is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Up until now, the bickering between Sandra and April has had jagged edges–the kind of spiteful barbs that land and sting. Rather than abandon that entirely, Fern folds it into the remainder of the dramatic narrative reinforcing to us that the skin can heal even if the wound does pierce. Because the condition is genetic, April absorbs some of her sister’s pain and almost repositions it for herself, and, in one of the film’s most dramatic moments, Sandra has to yank the sickness from her sister’s grasp, not unlike how feuding sisters would fight over a beloved toy in their youth.
Sandra and April severed ties very young, and they couldn’t be more different from one another. “You look older than I remember,” Sandra says to her when she first sees her is a reminder of how Paulson can swirl together bitchiness, wit, and acidity all into the sharpest of arrows. Even though it’s clear that she has had a lot of success, I wonder how much a performer like Sandra regrets inhabiting the lives of other people if they discover they are on borrowed time. Would Sandra have taken the time or patience to explore her own life if she had received this diagnosis earlier, or maybe that is where she finds the most joy. Whether it’s Jessica Lange, Sandra Bullock, or Kathy Bates, Paulson can go toe-to-toe with anyone, but Fern allows her to be magnificently center stage. She is someone who can fit snugly into a tight ensemble and enhance the performance of any co-star, but Closing Night is her most nuanced triumph. With a curl of her lip or a tear threatening to drop down her face, she glides towards grace with acidic wit.
Watts brings a stressed spikiness to April, as she abruptly has to juggle with aiding her sister and the revelations that come later in the film’s final third. When April shifts away from the calm, her breath becomes ragged and unexpected but we get the sense that she wants to bury the hatchet with her sister even if the diagnosis hadn’t come. And what can we say about the legend herself, Dianne Wiest? Watching her on screen is the utmost pleasure. Her Diane might be shielding herself the most, and it’s natural to wonder how much April and Sandra witnessed this as young women and allowed that to become part of themselves. Diane doesn’t race to New York since she couldn’t possibly close her salon down, but when she arrives in the city, she is asked what kind of room she would like. “One with a mini bar,” she deadpans. There’s something about her presence that reminded me so much of Gena Rowlands. There is a hidden, hard-won delicacy in her eyes.
Of all the shots throughout Fern’s film (which was shot by Yves Bélanger), the one that stuck with me since it screened at TIFF is one of Sandra and April’s backs as they wash the dishes together. We automatically imagine them as young girls doing chores, but now we see them as women with a brutal emotional history between them. You hurt the ones you love the most because you know that they will, hopefully and eventually, forgive you, and Fern’s richly divine debut cuts deeply because of its seductive humanity.
