3395. Opening Night (2016)

Starring: Topher Grace, Alona Tal, Anne Heche

Director: Isaac Rentz

Running Time: 90 mins

Opening Night is an American film about a stage play director who is forced into action as a chaotic chain of events threatens to derail the opening night of his grand musical production.

An enjoyably hectic look into the life of a backstage theatre director, along with a roster of entertaining performances, Opening Night is a fun, albeit never immensely memorable watch.

For a movie that spends almost all of its time behind the scenes, I must say that I was a little disappointed that it didn’t show something a little different to the rather predictable rags-to-riches story you’d often see on the stage.

Perhaps that parallel is deliberate, but Opening Night is a film that works when it’s at its most frantic, particularly as we follow a group of quirky personalities as they get into all sorts of mishaps backstage.

At the centre of it all is Topher Grace, who’s a lot of fun to watch attempt to wrangle a rapidly-unravelling stage production back under control, although he, as a character at least, is the most unremarkable person on screen.

That’s not any fault of Grace, who is really rather likable throughout, it’s just that the rest of the cast is far zanier and, in the context of a movie that’s all about quirks and chaos, a lot more fun to watch.

Overall, then, Opening Night is a bit of a mixed bag. A perfectly pleasant and enjoyable comedy, the film lacks the depth in its screenplay to tell a genuinely interesting story, instead falling back on its more hectic brand of comedy to keep some energy in proceedings. So, that’s why I’m giving the film a 6.7.