There's a lovely narrative sleight of hand happening here. A few in fact. But then it is an acting class so we're already trafficking in imagination. But things begin to escalate and suddenly we've fallen into the cinematic demonspawn love child of Lynch's MULLHOLLAND DRIVE and Cassavetes OPENING NIGHT. Writer/director Emily Bennett gets deep inside an actor's dreams of stardom while magnifying the toll exacted on an artist who is very far from achieving it.
Madeline Charmaine Morrell's descent into the nightmare of her own ambitions is elegantly unhinged. Kyle Minshew is sublimely terrifying as the actor teacher whose greatest ambition is for his venomous words to become the voice in your head.
We generally don't know what's real and what isn't any more than her protagonist does, so we get to experience this nightmare with her. The final shot is a shattering moment of clarity. Watch and discuss! There's so much here!
