Sophia Takal's Always Shine is a tightly wound thriller that follows two best friends on a weekend getaway to Big Sur and unearths the true horror of Hollywood. Both women are aspiring actors; the competitive harshness between them escalates when one begins to garner more success than the other. Released in 2016, Takal's film delivers a timely look at the type of competition women face in the film industry.
While the weekend gets off to a pleasant start, the trip takes a harrowing turn when seemingly innocent career-envy escalates and the pressures of Hollywood erupt into unexpected violence. Beth (Caitlin FitzGerald) has slowly begun to gain mainstream attention through a series of beer commercials and slasher films, both of which require nudity. This is a detail which angers Anna (Mackenzie Davis), who is displeased with the stereotypical roles the industry offers women. Anna, due to her unwillingness to accept roles that comprise her beliefs, has not achieved as much as Beth; she openly resents her for this. During their first night in Big Sur, the girls visit a local bar where Anna's jealousy is further provoked by a man blatantly favoring Beth over her.
When Anna offers to help Beth prep for an audition it becomes clear that she's talented—perhaps even more so than her friend. This implies Beth has only gotten to where she is by taking roles that diminish or objectify women. Tensions between the two friends increase when they run into an old acquaintance during their hike. He tells them about his short film and his desire to cast Anna. Upon finding out that Beth already knew this and failed to tell her, Anna feels as though her friend is intentionally sabotaging her. She's launched into a type of mania often reserved for female characters in film, which satirizes the portrayals of unstable female characters who are pushed to madness by trivial factors such as jealousy, pride and paranoia.
The Horror of Hollywood Pressures
Takal's film studies the complexities of female friendship and the violent consequences of rivalry, spurred on by the harsh demands of Hollywood. The film takes a Lynchian approach, distorting what should be a pleasant weekend into a surreal hell. Always Shine tracks Anna's descent into madness with foreshadowing and dramatic irony, giving viewers a chance to fear the future of the friendship. The final straw of Anna's sanity is when she overhears Beth on the phone with her boyfriend, telling him that she knows Anna is jealous of her and her budding career. An enraged Anna attacks Beth; their fight quickly leads to Beth's death.
Through a powerful depiction of anger, envy, and competition Always Shine comments on the way women in film are portrayed, emphasizing the limited roles through Beth and Anna. Their careers aside, the women act as foils to one another, their personalities contrasting in an obvious mockery of acceptable characteristics for fictional women. The stark juxtaposition between Beth and Anna references the Madonna/Whore complex, which places women into categories of good and bad; their traits determine whether they are worthy of sympathy. Beth is portrayed as a demure, reserved woman whose supposed innocence is contradicted by the sexualized roles she accepts. Anna, on the other hand is aggressive and intense; her opinionated personality is often shown as off-putting. By casting Anna in the villain role, the film jabs at the "unhinged woman" trope.
After killing her friend, Anna does not display immediate remorse. Instead, she seems to take on Beth's personality, replacing her anger with ease and adopting an eerily familiar type of shyness. Mirroring Beth, Anna returns to the local bar and successfully flirts with the bartender, securing a date with him the following evening. During dinner at his house, her delusional state causes Anna to see Beth—now acting like her—in the woods. Anna returns to their weekend house to find Beth's mourning boyfriend and a group of police officers who have discovered the body. With her fate left open, Anna's sense of self is lost, torn between the type of woman she knows the industry prefers and her own, deep rooted anger towards this bias. Tense, disturbing, and claustrophobic, Always Shine emphasizes the way Hollywood keeps women contained in repetitive, redundant roles.
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July 21, 2020 at 10:30PM
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Always Shine: How The Movie Explores The Horror of Hollywood - Screen Rant
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