Always Shine (2016)
Directed by Sophia Takal
On a trip to Big Sur, two friends, both actresses, try to reconnect with one another. Once alone, the women's suppressed jealousies and deep-seated resentments begin to rise, causing them to lose their grasp on not only the true nature of their relationship, but also their identities.
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What critics compared Always Shine to
Without revealing too much, the film starts to fold in on itself in a Persona-like manner, complete with shifting identities, repeated scenes, and even abstracted glimpses of the film’s own clapboards.
It's Queen of Earth meets Mulholland Drive , Passion with a dash of Persona , The Neon Demon in the atmospheric key of Martha, Marcy, May Marlene .
Discussions of long-held resentment and seemingly minor betrayals, filtered through the lens of genuine anxieties that the entertainment business brings, fester like a sore, eventually exploding in the film’s more Persona-inspired, reality-shattering, and ultimately filmsy final act.
This feminist psychological horror flick reminded some critics of Ingmar Bergman’s Persona and me of Sam Shepard’s play True West, with its two characters’ personalities start to bleed into each other’s.
That’s also when Always Shine‘s thematic connection to Ingmar Bergman’s two-women-in-an-isolated-house Persona becomes all the more apparent, down to intentional glimpses of the film crew.
On the surface, “Always Shine” is a tense thriller about failed female alliances — much of the time it seems poised to become a remake of “Persona,” as made by the horror director Alexandre Aja .