Recensioni de* critic*

Frankly, "Always Shine" could be a bit less clear what it's really about. Takal casually borrows from weirdo Altman (especially "3 Women" and "Images"), plus De Palma, with scrolling titles out of a Ken Russell movie and jarring mini-flash forwards, maybe lifted from "Easy Rider." But she rarely gets a chance to go whole hog genre... That doesn't mean what it says doesn't need to said, or that the way it says it doesn't work the nerves as well as the mind.

It's an immersive nightmare of merging, over-identification, and projection. Its strangeness (and I yearned for more strangeness) is part of the fascination. The true horror here is emotional. These women feel pressure to be one and have an equal desire to shatter the illusion of one-ness forever.

A deft, assured movie with a sly self-reflexive undercurrent containing commentary on sexism and self-idealization that's provocative, and sometimes disturbing. As it chronicles Anna's through line from neurosis to psychosis, it implies that, in times such as these, maybe the girl can't help it.

The worst you can say about this fascinating but flawed film is that it's a little academic; its surprises aren't always that surprising, and Always Shine would perhaps lend itself a little too easily to being material for a 101 seminar on Women in Hollywood and the Mechanics of the Gaze. But its slyness and seriousness are compelling, the acting is terrific, and there are some sleekly executed touches of genre come-on in the editing, with its hints of Nic Roeg dislocation.

A little too weird, arguably. Always Shine doesn't strive to be particularly subtle—Levine even opens the film with an epigram from model-agency founder John Robert Powers, referring to women as "the bowl of flowers on the table of life." Instead, Takal, working with editor Zach Clark (who, like Levine, is himself a director; his Little Sister opened earlier this year), complicates this blunt thesis in innovative formal ways.

Nudity is frequently discussed but little seen—Takal seems most interested in creating a kind of psychological nakedness. While this goal is admirable, particularly when it comes to a story of young blonde women whose acting careers are so steeped in vapidity, it sometimes feels that there is something missing... In the insular, deceptively sunny world of Always Shine female friendship is dangerous, sure, but its depiction could use a bit more nuance.

Cribbing largely from other filmmakers, Takal's stylistic affectations—doom-laden cutaways to foggy Big Sur panoramas, skittering jump cuts, languid zooms that milk frictions between foreground and background, and a soundtrack of Ligeti-like dissonances—end up accumulating into a tangle of evasiveness, wherein the badge of self-awareness is held up as a safety net against claims of fraudulence.

Nicely acted but conceptually tired, Always Shine doesn't manage to one-up Mulholland Drive; rather, it makes one crave the original.

All of this tension comes to a head midway through in a twist that offers Anna an opportunity to temporarily try to be Beth—in essence trying out a new role, one that conforms more closely to conventional notions of femininity. This is the point where viewers are bound to think of Persona, but Takal is less interested in Ingmar Bergman's brand of heavy philosophical inquiry than in horror-movie-like tension, with Beth popping up as a kind of specter to remind Anna of her transgressions.

The film (written by Takal's husband, Lawrence Michael Levine, who co-stars) is a sort of film-noir cosplay, in which Anna and Beth's creative passions magnify their conflicts to tragic dimensions.