Always Shine
Tags: psychological

Plot synopsis:
Beth (Caitlin FitzGerald) is an actress who is finally beginning to have commercial success appearing in cinematic thrillers and beer commercials which routinely require nudity. She plans a weekend getaway to Big Sur with her best friend Anna (Mackenzie Davis), a struggling actress who works for free in student films.
On the way to Big Sur, Beth is recognized by a fan. Anna soon discovers that Beth has been featured in the "Young Hollywood" edition of a popular magazine. Later that day, the two women have a conversation, during which Anna reveals that she broke up with her boyfriend after getting angry with him, and shoving him rather aggressively.
Anna and Beth go to a bar where Anna flirts with a man who quickly loses interest in her, as he finds her too aggressive. He instead asks out Beth, who accepts his dinner date despite having a boyfriend.
The next day, Anna helps Beth practice for an upcoming audition, after which the two go hiking in the woods, where they encounter Beth's director friend who has wanted to cast Anna in his upcoming short film. Anna is dismayed to learn that Beth was already aware of this offer but never mentioned it to her. Beth accuses Anna of looking at her with contempt, and scurries away.
While hiking alone to their rented cottage, Beth is offered a ride home by a kindly bartender. After returning to the cottage, Beth calls her boyfriend to tell him that Anna is jealous of her, even though Beth still feels insecure about the quality of her acting career. Overhearing the conversation, Anna physically attacks Beth, who flees into the woods with Anna in pursuit-- and the altercation continues there.
The next day, Anna begins to dress in Beth's clothes and acts demurely, much like Beth, who quickly notices Anna's odd behavior (not to mention the fact that she tends to follow Beth around). Anna (as Beth) returns to the bar where she encounters the kindly bartender. The two flirt, and have a tryst.
The following evening, while he and Anna are having dinner at the home of his friends, Anna sees Beth (now acting like Anna) approaching her and flees into the woods, where the two have yet another altercation. Beth attempts to choke Anna, who manages to turn the tables, fatally strangling Beth. Shortly afterward, Beth's body seems to vanish. The following morning, Anna awakens in the woods. As she returns to the house, Anna sees police officers wheeling away a body they found in the woods.

Review: Our two characters, Anna and Beth, are both actresses.
Bashful Beth is a rising success, while bold Anna's career is struggling to take off.
However the trip seems burden by an overbearing sense of tension, that slowly builds between the two over their stay, leading to an unexpected yet unavoidable confrontation.The film is intriguing enough to hold interest until the end, mainly because of the two main characters and the actresses portraying them.
The film also has a lot of interesting themes on its mind regarding the role of women in the film business and in society as well, and it will surely hit close to home for many.
The two lead actresses are really good in their roles, particularly Mackenzie Davis who has the meatier role and who is able to knock it out of the park.
It takes a lot of clichéd elements like the rivalry between women, especially actresses, but puts a new spin on them.The film is about two best friends, Beth (Caitlin FitzGerald) and Anna (Mackenzie Davis).
Both are actresses but Beth is experiencing a sudden surge in her career as she begins to land dumb parts in big budget successful horror movies.
The women head up to a cabin for a vacation but tension about their careers is high and neither can find it within themselves to be kind, graceful or supportive of the other.
It's a bit of a psychological horror film, so while the gore isn't there, it's still pretty dynamic and a little scary..
The story looked promising, two girl- friends going for a weekend together, the one being a popular actress and having a steady relation.
This flick is going to hit a lot of festivals in the near future, I guess why because it's in no way a horror, some say a psychological thriller, I can agree in some way but still nothing really happens only verbal words....Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 0/5 Story 2,5/5 Comedy 0/5.
This movie is about two young, struggling actresses whose friendship is dying and they know it, so they plan a girls retreat in a remote cabin in Big Sur. One is beautiful, in a committed relationship, gets admiration where she goes, and has had some steady gigs.
The other is the better actress yet can't get cast, she is alone, has average looks and is very mentally unstable - we see this in the first few scenes and it builds from there.
I strongly recommend this movie if you are into psychological thrillers..
I was so disappointed with the ending that I considered rating it a 4 (due to the script not being very philosophical or interesting for an indie flick with a clear agenda), but Mackenzie Davis SAVED this.If you watch the movie knowing the ending is going to disappoint you, then you may just enjoy it that much more.
However, if you like films with a beginning, middle, and a proper end, then just pass this one up and save yourself the time..
With "Always Shine" Director Sophia Takal has fashioned a subtle/not so much so really treatise on the too frequently vicious dynamic among women consumed by envy-infested competition.
While this twisted story of two young actresses plays out in progressively amped-up stages, the soft impact denouement leaves one with the feeling of "So what the hell IS the thrust?" Mackenzie Davis (building on her impressive turn in 2015's quiet gem "A Country Called Home") is Anna and Caitlin Fitzgerald (Showtime's "Masters of Sex"), Beth, whose friendship is frayed as the latter's career has progressed more successfully than has her gal-pal's.
Takal creates and sustains a venomous vibe here, ratcheting it up by means of rapid fire subliminal suggestion editing from Zach Clark and a consistently discomforting music under bed supplied by Michael Montes, all coming together with wicked ferocity to inject intensely ominous pulsations of alarming foreshadowing.Lawrence Michael Levine (Takal's husband who also appears in the film) has composed a story heavy in it's apparent message that the fairer of the sex's is painfully complicit in consistently falling victim to the predatory machinations of men, particularly in the conform or be cast out world of Hollywood.
And to this end, you will no doubt note that Takal teasingly, and quite purposefully, tantalizes her audience with, yet never completely gives in for even a split second to, gratuitous nudity involving her comely co-stars.
Not in THIS chick's flick, buster.) Levine takes the driving theme to expressly existential places, such as in a scene where the anger-afflicted Anna aggressively challenges a guy who is participating in a "Men's Retreat", asking him if a similar event comprised of women would meet with a comparative degree of acceptance and embracement.
Don't we, most of us of reasonably pragmatic sensibility leastways, believe that women as a community of spirit and souls are far better, and one whole helluva lot STRONGER, than that?
Lord, let's hope so.I was looking for, and fully expecting, a more jarring conclusion than Takal opts to give us in the final moments of "Always Shine".
It's a pretty good film, Caitlin FitzGerald and Mackenzie Davis did an excellent job and hold interest for most of the film.
The whole thing is ruined by a poor ending which appears to be a patch to the whole film that doesn't belong there.
This movie was going along great until the last little bit.
The end leaves you with a few questions.
If you see Always Shine for any reason, see it for its two lead performances.
Mackenzie Davis and Caitlin Fitzgerald appear to be on verge of spontaneous combustion --- at each other but mostly at themselves --- for the hour-and-a-half run time of Sophia Takal's sophomore feature (penned by her fiancé Lawrence Michael Levine).Always Shine is one of the most compellingly shot and edited indie features I've seen recently, using jump-cuts and flash-forwards in consistent intriguing ways.
It opens with Beth (Fitzgerald) reciting a "please don't hurt me" slasher-film script into the lens for an audition and immediately follows with Anna (Davis) giving a polar-opposite speech that is more, well...
It's a clever set-up and tells you everything you need to know about these two young women in about eight minutes: Both are actresses.
Beth is confident with her looks and charm, but not much else, and Anna is so insecure that every twitch Davis delivers is almost too painful to study for long.
Both are grappling for a tow-hold on the Hollywood feature film success ladder but only Beth has achieved a moderate level of success even though it's obvious Anna is the more talented of the two.
And that's where Always Shine gets really interesting as the two head off for a weekend of "healing" at Anna's aunts house in (gorgeous as always) Big Sur. Watching Davis and Fitzgerald come *just shy* of ripping each other to shreds --- with paper cuts not razor blades is far more interesting than watching most actresses pull hair and scream.
A fierce layer of male complicity runs underneath each woman's self-loathing and that's a nice touch, carefully derailing the "crazy chicks" cliché the film could have collapsed into under less skillful hands.Audiences looking for an easy-out are going to be a bit put off by the last third of the film, which doesn't chart any new territory plot-wise and can be confusing for the more literal-minded, yet it strangely works for the most part.
The two leads give fine performances in this hopeless mess of a movie..
Always Shine combines elements of Persona, Single White Women, Mulholland Drive, and the trope of being in slim-populated woodlands.It does not succeed, especially in the 2nd half after a somewhat-promising first that builds up slowly after introducing us to the two main leads; a timid but rising young actress whose career is starting to trend upward, and a brash and fiery aspiring young actress whose career hasn't taken off.The timid Beth has a chance to reconnect w/ "old friend" Anna.
Very soon it's shown Beth has kept information from Anna which might have led to a role.This upsets Anna and she is further angered when Beth is hit on by a party-goer not far from the Big Sur home they spend time at "reconnecting," and this same chap had just backed off from the forceful Anna.Now at this point we're still not sure where exactly we're heading with all this tension and awkwardness.
So we assume the rapid flashbacks of violence that splash on the screen at random times will come to fruition in the form of violence.But soon the film degenerates into montages of reality blurring with fantasy; Beth races from the vacation house to be chased by Anna, following a frantic call from Beth to her boyfriend (who drives to Big Sur but disappears entirely near the end; none of the male characters here are important or shown to be competent or confident or necessary) and something bad takes places.Soon after Anna takes over Beth's looks and personality (to the point of mingling w/ Beth's new bartender friend, met at Big Sur after he gives Beth a lift back to the house; he doesn't notice the difference or perhaps this is a fantasy in Anna's head but I was too disinterested by this point to care.)Always Shine is mercifully short, not even 90 minutes.
Minutes that go by rather slowly after an intriguing beginning of close-up camera shots for the female leads, establishing their personalities.
The final shot comes sooner than expected, but it's rather confusing and not in a good way.
As I mention the two leads are the best reason to watch this; the males are rather bland and off-putting, much like the dialogue save for scenes between Anna/Beth.
Jane Adams appears briefly near the end; blink and you'll miss her.Not the best material, not very original or captivating.
Davis comes off best here in a somewhat meaty role.
Two women who are aspiring actresses and lifelong friends decide to take a retreat to a beautiful house overlooking the woods and the ocean in Northern California to reconnect after time has started to move them in different directions.
That the woman who is close to making it is also a passive woman, with little of interest to add to any conversation and little in the way of personality, who is prone to saying yes to any man asking her any thing (whether to take her clothes off or to go to dinner with a man her friend clearly likes even though she has a boyfriend she likes) and the other is stubborn, outspoken and "feminist" with a strong personality, is the real crux of the film though.
This is a movie about what it takes to make it in Hollywood, but also just as a woman in any walk of life.
The prevalent constant sexism under the hood of everyday expectations of being female.There's a naturalness to both performances that works well, and the tension mounts from meaningful dialogue exchanges and the actor's faces.
Then the twist happens and while it's interesting in theory, it also sort of halts the movie's progress and momentum.
the movie is engaging however questions remain.
there is a want to follow the characters to the end.
the performances by both main characters are satisfactory as the story builds.
but alas the ending leaves the viewer unsure as to what really happens..
When I started watching this film, I'll admit, I expected the Hollywood over-sexualized b-movie about girls in underwear and steamy showers...
It was, as they say, "a breath of fresh air" to be able to watch a female-led film without having to cringe and sigh at over-sexualized interactions, and pointless nudity.
Then, I turned to the internet to find out what the ending was supposed to mean (and you might too), and as it turns out, my (as mentioned) relief WAS the point- in a sense.I have watched a questionable amount of films in my lifetime (more so than my peers), however, I don't consider myself to be a film enthusiast.
I do feel this film might need to be watched at least a couple times before you're able to make sense of some scenes, and thus believe this film will be more appreciated by film enthusiasts, but nonetheless would recommend watching.
The themes of the film are refreshing, and I feel lucky to have lived in a time when a filmmaker could tell a story for what it is, and without the distractions (glamour, nudity, gore) needed to keep an audience's attention..
Beth and Anna are young actresses whose careers are going in opposite directions.
They grew up as friends, but have lost touch as Anna became jealous of Beth's success.
To reconnect they go on a retreat to Big Sur.The movie is supposed to be a thriller, but absolutely nothing thrilling happens.
The only thought crossing the viewer's mind is how unlikable Beth is.
At least Anna feels truer, having some emotion come out of her when needed.I'm not sure anything could have made this bore of a movie any better.
It got 2 out of 10 only because the production values were solid, and the actress who played Anna did a good job with the bad material she had..
The main thing which struck me about the movie is the brilliant acting by the 2 girls.
Its a very good movie about how dynamics of friendship change in face of competition and jealousy.
The movie was quite engaging even though it is simply about 2 characters on vacation.
The viewer is attracted to learn more and more about them which makes it good watch.
The girls come out as really charming and I was stunned by the acting skills.
Every Shot and Line of Dialog Smacks of Profundity and is as Obvious as it is Agenda Driven.Unshackled Minority Baggage left over from Less Enlightened Times Resides and Clings to the Film and is a Brightly Lit Magnifying Mirror that Reflects its Frustrated Female Angst and is Relentless in the Narrative Drive to the Point of We Get the Point...Moving On...Please.The Movie Arrives at a Conclusion that Many will Find Familiar in the Schizo Sub Genre of the Psychological Thriller with Directors like Hitchcock, DePalma, Lynch and Others Peppering Their Filmography with the Likes of this one.It's too Heavy Handed and Obvious from the First Act that these Two Characters, formerly Best Friends are Going to Split at some Point because the Tension is Telling Us that.
One Stares, Glares, and is Confrontational and the other Shrinks with Self-Deprecation Routinely.It's an Acting Showcase for Makenzie Davis and Caitlin Fitzgerald and both are Up to the Task and are Compelling.
The Writer (Lawrence Michael Divine) and the Director (Sophia Takal) are Gaming a Well Worn System of Cinematic Clichés and Camera, Editing, Film Flourishes that are Signature Stylistic Touchstones from the Toolbox of other Filmmakers.Influence is a Kind Description of what Goes On here.
It's a Good Try from just Getting Started Film Artists but while Their Creativity is Not in Doubt, Their Ability to Punctuate the Picture with a Period or an Exclamation Point leaves the Audience with a Frustrating Question Mark that makes for an Unsatisfying Conclusion for all the Hard Work..
This film is no more than a primary school show with no story , no playing.
With almost unknown actors , very simple settings and low budget , this relies entirely on the uniqueness of the story , appropriate performances of the cast and direction , analyzes the relationship of two best friends .
Meaning that because its leads are women, it's about women, and its director is a woman (Sophia Takal)...
it must, by default, be spectacular.Well, sorry to say, it most definitely is not!Not a single review here to-date touches on the fact that this film borrows — LIFTS — heavily (and poorly) from Ingmar Bergman's 'Persona'.
There are enough hints dropped to suggest these girls ARE split personalities of the one character, however...
And because this film is going out of its way to raise questions, but does it so illogically, I will not waste my time rifling thru the trash to unveil the hidden truths.
There also exists no intelligence in this script to neither do that sublimely nor tell a coherent story.At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself what the point was?
What a waste.See it only if you have an old TV you're looking to toss out, so you can throw things at the screen, then put your foot thru it at the end..
A psychological thriller with more going on under the surface than most.
Two actresses take a break from L.A. and travel to a house in the country, the isolation brings to the surface dark emotions such as jealousy and distrust.
The introductions to both characters taps into this right away where we have a close-up shot of the actress head on, the first woman is auditioning for a part in front of a group of men, while the second woman is engaging in a heated exchange with a man who is trying to rip her off.
The idea of these scenes I guess is to show that women exist essentially in a man's world and have to put up with things men generally do not.
So, one of the themes of the film is the pressures society puts on women.
In this scenario, these tensions result in two friends going to war with each other.
Professional jealousies intertwine with all other tensions leading to a dark place.Acting by both leads, Mackenzie Davis and Caitlin Fitzgerald, is very good, especially Davis whose character ultimately runs the gauntlet of emotional states including assertive, insecure, meek and aggressive.
You have interesting characters with differing motivations and huge amounts going on under the surface.
It's, on the whole, a very satisfying combination of a lot of disparate ideas that's comes together to create something really interesting..