I'll Show You Mine

She is a best selling author, celebrated for drilling down into her own trauma, supposedly open about the most intimate aspects of her life. He found brief fame as a model, but is now languishing somewhat, trading on old fan interest, dreaming of a comeback but hesitating to commit. Now Priya (Poorna Jagannathan) wants to interview her nephew Nick (Casey Thomas Brown) and get to the secrets he keeps from the world. What she’s not prepared for is a conversation which will expose secrets of her own, with both of them traversing dangerous territory.

Megan Griffiths’ provocative yet ultimately rather slight film draws on its characters’ shared history, allowing each to find holes in the other’s professional story and gradually pull it apart. Priya is determined to locate some hitherto unspoken scandal in Nick’s life we she can expose to make her book a success, after disappointment with the previous one, but struggles at first because he seems so comfortable with himself, his bisexuality failing to produce either titillation or secret shame. In search of the latter, she will strive to draw out something dark – but despite his relative youth and his fresh-faced looks, he’s quite aware of the game she’s playing, and he gradually teases out the source of her own deep-rooted shame.

All this would work just as well on a stage, and Griffiths doesn’t really do much with it to get beyond that, though she handles the actors well and there’s some nice set dressing and lighting. It’s still a gripping watch, with both leads very capable and the balance of power shifting back and forth throughout as the tension ebbs and flows. Both characters at times seem vulnerable to giving in to the moment, to dropping their guard simply because it’s so rare a pleasure to have the opportunity to talk about sex in an intense, personal way with someone without having to fuck them. Drink and drugs carry this further, yet each is capable of mustering a sharp wit when defence becomes necessary or attack just too tempting. A surprisingly joyous touch at the end promotes the idea of catharsis, but also brings the two as close as lovers, inescapably bound to each other, leaving one all too aware of the bitterness which might easily follow.

The film is dedicated to Lynn Shelton and possesses some of the same energy and rawness. Despite its aesthetic polish and the use of chapters, the interplay of the characters often feels immediate and unplanned. This isn’t a cutesy little sex comedy – indeed, in places it feels like a critique of that genre – and viewers should be aware that it deals with some uncomfortable topics. That’s rather the point, however. There is a difference between public personas – even those worn by the non-famous – and the messy stuff of real life.

Though it doesn’t really go anywhere after making its central point, I’ll Show You Mine is a smart and enjoyable little film which showcases some impressive talent.