Big Sur proves inspiration for the film Always Shine.

With its vertigo-inducing cliffs, thick veils of fog and raw beauty, Big Sur is an ideal setting for Sophia Takal’s intense psychological thriller Always Shine. Premiering at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival, the movie created a big buzz with publications including Entertainment Weekly, and garnered a Best Actress award for Mackenzie Davis, who stars as the tempestuous Anna. It begins screening locally at the Osio Theater Dec. 2.

Always Shine follows aspiring actress Anna and her actress friend Beth (Caitlin FitzGerald of Showtime’s Masters of Sex) as they attempt to reconnect during a weekend trip to Big Sur. Local viewers will appreciate the movie’s knowing depiction of Big Sur and identifiable locations including the Big Sur Roadhouse, Pfeiffer Beach and Andrew Molera State Park. The film’s insider knowledge about everything from the Big Sur Bakery’s tasty cookies to a humorous view of an Esalen Institute men’s retreat is due to Takal, the director, having spent two months living in the area.

Takal, who directed the film, and her husband Lawrence Michael Levine, who wrote the script and portrays a bartender named Jessie, had visited Big Sur a handful of times before shooting it. “The first time I went to Big Sur I was blown away by how beautiful it was,” she says from her new home in Los Angeles. “I always say it made me believe in God.”

Levine and Takal lived in Big Sur for a month prior to filming, in part to figure out how they were going to shoot the movie. Then, once filming began, the cast and crew lived together in a house in Big Sur for a month while making Always Shine.

“We would wake up in the morning, and the cast and crew would do these these meditations and hippie, New Agey warm-ups,” Takal says. “At the end of the day, we’d all have dinner and talk about the best part of our day and the worst part of our day so that nothing was festering underneath the surface.”

Takal says that Big Sur truly added to the feel of her film. “For me, Big Sur is a place that is so removed from the superficial bullshit of Hollywood and celebrity and stupid shit like that,” she says. “You are forced to confront who you really are because there is no noise. So to me bringing Anna and Beth to Big Sur was a way of getting them out and away from all of the things that are distracting them from looking inward, so that they have to look inward and confront their demons.”

Big Sur residents may notice more than just local scenery in the film. Julian Tolentino of Big Sur’s Namaste Therapeutic Bodyworks makes his acting debut in the movie as Jack.

“My husband went for a massage and asked Julian if he would be in the movie,” Takal says. “It was his first time acting in a movie, and he was so good. He was so present and brings so much to that part. It was really exciting to work with him.”

Takal strove to make the movie without getting in the way of Big Sur residents’ daily lives. “One of the things that was really important to me was to have a small enough crew that we wouldn’t be an intrusion on people,” she says.

A wholly effective element of the film that is unrelated to its setting is how Always Shine is edited, so that moments of the movie’s present action are interrupted with dissonant sounds and quick flashes of a sinister future. “We use those flashes forward as these moments when Anna’s rage is really bubbling outside of her, a way of getting into her mind and understanding how she is feeling,” Takal says.

Always Shine also examines the complexity of female friendship and the expectations that society places on women. Anna and Beth seem to represent different aspects of femininity. “I definitely identified more with Anna,” Takal says. “For me, Beth was this manifestation of what I thought women were supposed to be, and then Anna is this messy woman who can’t fit into a mold.”

The film will definitely change Takal’s career. But making Always Shine in Big Sur also has changed the director’s personal life.

“After we shot the movie, my husband and I decided to move here [to California from New York City] because we had such a wonderful time in Big Sur and in California,” she says. “We wanted to be close [to Big Sur].”

Takal believes being in a place like Big Sur serves an important function.

“Just being surrounded by mountains, I find so humbling,” she says. “If I’m trapped in my own self-absorption, I just look out my window and see these huge mountains then it reminds me that there is more to life than the dumb shit I am worrying about. I think Big Sur is the ultimate place like that.”

ALWAYS SHINE opens at the Osio Theater, 350 Alvarado St., Monterey, on Friday, Dec. 2. 901-3119, www.osiotheater.com