Always Shine

Nicholas Gregory

The 'twisty' elements fuck it up. The 1st hour is beautifully constructed in character relationships and tension, as it's so well orchestrated in the acting, scripting, characterization, and emotional depth that it's everything that this same year's The Neon Demon isn't. Then the two big twists in the final act come and it goes to hell: being unnecessarily confusing and cliche at best, and gimmicky at worst.

HenriqueA

Sundance Workshop's own version of Mulholland Drive ain't much elaborate, surprising or even eventful, but Mackenzie Davis alone makes it kinda worth watching.

Henri de Corinth

You can only remake Persona and/or 3 Women so many times. Too little too late. But, it gets a 3 because I'm soft on identity swap and because Mackenzie Davis is a force of nature.

jxn

and in the end mackenzie davis does prove herself as the much better actress. pretty fun but not as solid or subtle as last years 'queen of earth'

ig_____or

While the plot is a little too on the nose in some moments and scenes, seeing both frenemies unravel was pretty exciting and the outcome remained unpredictable until de very end. A sleek thriller with great work by both lead actresses, where the edition work also stands out.

saitosouta

This movie is produced by Sophia Takal, who watched De Palama's "Passion" and said "I'll show you real movie about women's love & hatred." In first act, this movie depicts, like her debut "Green," why women is abused because of just being women, why women love & desire men who override themselves with de palma-esque stylish direction & intense atomosphere. BUUUUUUUUUUT third act is predictable & boring, OH MY.

Mtume Gant

3.5 It was really working until the bloody confrontation. I felt like the filmmaker was really showing us something about actresses, and a certain culture of women in our society and their social death, the filmmaking choices were bold and felt very fresh but post confrontation it hit genre cliches of the post Persona/Mulholland Drive storytelling style and it lost itself. But it was a good picture overall.

†. Kennedy Pope

Always Shine earns credit for achieving the pseudo-horror tone in an ultimately effective way; the two-shot and one-shot cinematography is repetitive for the sake of achieving this tone, which is noticed, but not particularly annoying. Where the film as a whole falls flat to me is the sheer triteness of the subject matter. The seeds of jealousy, vanity, etc. in this context could've been used more inventively.