TIFF Review: “Closing Night”

Closing Night (Cody Fern, 2026) 1 out of 5 stars

An almost-unbearable exercise in how to waste considerable talent, Closing Night—the debut feature of director Cody Fern—stars a quartet of strong actresses, none of whom are given much to do beyond yell at each other. A poignant final scene notwithstanding, the movie forces both laughter and tears in the most ostentatious way possible, the net result being very little of genuine sentiment. If it feels like mawkish, Oscar-bait pablum, that’s because it is.

The four women in question are, in alphabetical order, Odessa A’zion (Marty Supreme), Sarah Paulson (Hold Your Breath), Naomi Watts (Luce), and Dianne Wiest (Let Them All Talk), joined by actor Toby Wallace (Babyteeth), doing his best to keep up. Given their proven skill, it’s a shame the script fails them. All we get is easy sentimentality, instead. Worse, we see the plot twists coming from far away.

Paulson plays Sandra Vale, a star of theater and films who has invited her estranged mother and sister to New York to see her current stage production, labeling it as a family reunion. Watts arrives in the Big Apple (from the Midwest), though claims it is really to see her son, Theo (Wallace), who lives there with his partner, Lucy (A’zion). When Watts soon finds out that Theo has previously met his aunt for lunch (more than once), she is not happy. Once we find out the reason, it’s hard to understand exactly whence the anger, other than the fact that Fern deemed it necessary.

Eventually, the narrative also involves Mom (Wiest), whose alcoholic bluster has obviously created the problems on overt display. There’s a big (not-so-secret) reveal later that tries to explain the dysfunction, yet still very little of it makes sense. Why have the sisters not spoken for decades? I’m still not sure.

The primary reason for them coming together now, however, is Sandra’s diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. While in theory it should be possible to incorporate such a prognosis into jokes, drama, and more, what transpires feel tasteless. Rather than using the situation for carefully orchestrated heartfelt moments, Closing Night merely exploits them for cheap points.

There is a certain kind of heightened female emotionality and trauma that has long been fetishized on screen, usually written by men. In the classic Hollywood era of the 1930s through the 1950s, these melodramas were, in fact, often referred to as woman’s pictures (even though written by men). This movie leans into those tropes with a vengeance. Sadly, it offers nothing new as it does so.

Christopher Llewellyn Reed

Chris Reed is the editor of Film Festival Today. A member of both the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, Chris is, in addition, lead film critic at Hammer to Nail and the author of Film Editing: Theory and Practice.