Open at Night (Ouvert la nuit) is a 2016 film from France directed by Edouard Baer.
Luigi (Edouard Baer) is the owner of a theater who is about to put on a play called "The Woman and the Ape". Unfortunately he is running out of money to pay his actors and crew, on the night before the show is supposed to start. Not only that, he also is in need of an ape to play the ape, after his actor in a monkey suit breaks a leg. His Hypercompetent Sidekick Nawel (Audrey Tautou) is driven to the point of madness as she tries to get Luigi to focus on getting the show in order.
Eventually, with the crew going on strike, Luigi is forced to take action. He goes out on an all night trek to secure financing and also find an ape to play his ape. He brings along Faeza, a hardworking intern, who semi-unwillingly accompanies him on an adventure all over Paris.
Audrey Tautou is mostly absent from the movie after the first 15 minutes but is prominently featured in American advertising.
Tropes:
- As Himself: Michel Galabru, one of the most famous character actors in France who was in hundreds of films over a 68-year-career, appears as himself, a member of the play's cast. It was his last film role.
- Brick Joke: As Luigi and Faeza get out of a cab, they leave Serapos the ape wrangler inside with the lady cab driver. Luigi suggests the two of them get to know each other better. They're locked in a passionate embrace in the front seat when Luigi and Faeza get back.
- Call-Back: When Luigi is first introduced to Serapos's ape, the ape lights a cigarette with a lighter. At the end Luigi is sitting on a park bench at the Pont des Arts in despair—and there's the ape, out of nowhere, believed to be dead, but very much alive and again lighting Luigi's cigarette.
- Dirty Old Man: As if everything else going wrong isn't bad enough, the old Japanese fellow who is directing the play has some sort of nervous breakdown. Luigi is summoned, only for the director to start babbling about how he wants to kiss, and smell, the dimple of a young woman's knee.
- Enter Stage Window: Luigi climbs through a window to Nawel's bedroom, where he gets on his knees and says that they should get married. After a Beat she gets her boyfriend, who calmly takes Luigi in hand and politely guides him out of the apartment.
- Epic Tracking Shot: Luigi goes to a film set, looking for an ape wrangler. This is done in a tracking shot that follows Luigi and Faeza down a flight of steps, in a complicated path through a crowd, up into a production trailer, through the trailer and back down into the crowd.
- Flipping the Table: The play's director, a Japanese man who has been silent in a vaguely creepy way throughout rehearsal, flips his table when Luigi admits they have to go find an ape now that their actor broke his leg.
- Funny Background Event: As the director and producer and crew of the show argue in the foreground, the actor in the ape suit tumbles out of the cage (which is suspended from the ceiling) in the background. He breaks his leg, which is funny but also plot-relevant as Luigi has to go get an ape.
- The Gambling Addict: In the back story. Marcel, head of the production crew at the theater, reveals that he used to be a gambling addict and at one point was about to lose his house. Luigi showed up unasked and gave Marcel a sack containing 15,000 euros.
- Gilligan Cut: Luigi is pursued by a flower guy who gives him a mute, pleading look. Luigi says "We like you, but it's no, ok?"—cut to Luigi with a bouquet of flowers. The flower guy still pursues, Luigi says "We have everything we need!"—cut to Luigi with an even bigger bouquet of flowers.
- No Peripheral Vision: Somehow Luigi manages to sit down on a bench without noticing an ape sitting on the other end of the bench.
- One Crazy Night: Luigi and Faeza go on a madcap all-night journey through Paris, which involves kidnapping an ape, breaking into a zoo to steal a different ape, getting arrested in the zoo, getting chased by a jealous father, and babysitting an infant.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Luigi's thoughtlessness for his workers (he is dragging Faeza all over town when she needs to get home to her baby) is one thing. But when he hits on the great idea of paying off the crew with bad checks, she snaps and goes on a rant where she calls him selfish and careless and a "piece of shit boss."
- Rich Bitch: Mrs. Pelletier, the snooty rich lady who acts friendly towards Luigi but actually takes petty delight in making him and other supplicants wait around for her. After embarrassing him by making him beg for more cash, she blows him off, saying "the bank is closed".
- Silly Simian: Luigi and Faeza steal an ape, who is introduced leafing through a book as he is reading it. The ape lights Luigi's cigarette with a lighter, then calmly sits with Luigi and Faeza at a bar, drinking juice from a glass. This gag is brought to a screeching halt when the ape is Killed Offscreen, hit by a car—but the ending reveals that the ape wasn't actually injured and is perfectly fine.
- Staggered Zoom: There's a shot from outside a window, of Luigi cradling Faeza's baby, which turns into a staggered zoom outward, making him look very small.
- Title Theme Tune: The credits roll over a man singing a song called "Ouvert la nuit".
- Walk and Talk: There are a couple of scenes like this in the early going as Luigi and Nawel are walking through the theater's offices, while she pesters him to take care of their various production problems.
