Opening Night

John Cassavetes
1977

You know it's a Cassavetes film when the majority of the camera's intimate affections are dedicated to a boozy Gena Rowlands flitting about on the verge of hysteria. So goes Opening Night, another sweetly sadistic and painfully human installment in the working relationship between John Cassavetes (who also appears in front of the camera in this outing) and wife Gena. The "last straw" opening of an adoring fan, accidentally slain by an automobile, sets up Rowlands's mid-career crisis in heavy-handed cornball fashion, though thankfully this device transmutes into an eerily complex and menacing doppelganger - Gena at 17. This portrait of a slapped actress manages to be even more hackle raising than Rowlands's previous turn as a mentally ill housewife (A Woman Under the Influence) due to the suspenseful live performances that can so easily go to hell based on the whims of the unbalanced leading lady. The majority of the picture is a distressed potboiler leading up to the titular event where a late Rowlands shows up completely blotto - barely able to speak or walk let alone perform. Once onstage this trainwreck of trainwrecks evolves into a black coffee infused passion play complete with epic apotheosis.