Henry O'Brien
Cinema really doesn’t need television producer Ryan Murphy, one of the most successful and powerful men working in the medium today, to butt in. Although Murphy hasn’t directed a feature in 16 years (the last one being Eat Pray Love) and hasn’t been a producer on a film since 2022, his influence, both dramatically and aesthetically, in Cody Fern’s debut Closing Night.
The movie, which premiered at TIFF, features Murphy regulars like Sarah Paulson and Naomi Watts as bitterly estranged sisters tied up in a web of lies and resentment. The result is a work that would’ve been underdeveloped in either television or film: it fails at creating family dynamics that feel organic or creating a melodramatic feel, which would’ve made the viewing experience far more bearable.
Paulson and Watts’ characters haven’t seen each other in 30 years and have built lives for themselves while still holding mysterious grudges. Paulson’s Sandra has become a famous yet demanding theater actor who experiences a medical episode when her family comes to visit her performance. Meanwhile, Watts’ April, who is also seeing son Theo (Toby Wallace) and his girlfriend (Odessa A’zion), starts to experience kleptomania and a nasty pathological lying.
As Sandra realizes death is neither, she relies on the one woman who hasn’t spoken to her for decades, leading to the revelations that don’t explain as much why the characters are the way that they are, but instead are there solely to build stakes. Additionally, the actual explanations do not equal the amount of anger that is shared between Sandra and April.
The scenarios Fern and co-screenwriter Devon Bostick (his first feature screenplay) create for these two characters could lead to what one would hope Murphy’s shows purport themselves to be: campy fun. Only it’s never heightened enough. April is never as visibly stressed and panicked as she would be, nor is Sandra as uptight or controlling as she would be. Fern’s film and Murphy’s shows want to be a part of this great melodramatic tradition, but feel too tied down to the need to sit on a therapy couch and delve into family trauma.
The production design and cinematography further muddy the waters. Whereas great Sirikian melodramas are known for their expressive colors and artificiality, the film strives for a modern sheen and a bland-looking color scheme. It never takes advantage of using color to reveal the characters’ inner conflict.
The one performer who’s willing and game to actually go for something not bogged down by family therapy is Dianne Wiest, who plays the two sisters’ mother. Wiest relishes playing the mother who clearly wasn’t perfect, yet will not take any shit for how she raised her family.
But as the plot progresses and supposedly gets more “chaotic,” Fern and Bostick’s number of clichés and trite left turns never result in something that actually gets a rise out of anyone. None of the characters are particularly funny or arresting, leaving the more climactic moments and “shocking” reveals to land with a resounding thud. This could describe Fern’s film or the many shows that are called American *blank* Story.
Closing Night’s hard left turn into sincerity and seriousness in the final act reads as a concession that Fern couldn’t land the melodramatic angle he was going for and basically hoped for a resolution that would help with the test scores. As the sisters have once again gotten to revealing their bitterness and past mistakes, they unsurprisingly come together to bond
The result is a tonal mess of a picture where melodrama and realism collide to create a grotesque chimera that relies solely on dramatic choices that needed a few more passes in rewrites.
Fern, whether he intended it or not, can’t shake the ugly influence Murphy’s storytelling sensibilities have on his debut feature. There are twists just for the sake of drama, and the actual emotional core of the story remains quite hollow.
Should Murphy inspire a generation of writers and directors on his sensibility, then the medium will become far more dull, and melodrama will become more and more disrespected and a lost art form.
