Having become an international star since her participation in the “Friends” series (1994-2004), Courteney Cox has also made a name for herself on the big screen in the “Scream” saga.
She was still in the credits of the last opus released in January 2022. However, she has struggled in the meantime to grow her career, unlike, for example, her comrade Jennifer Aniston.
In recent years, she had even deserted theaters and television.
With "Shining Vale" she finds a leading role in a series that mixes the two genres that made her famous: comedy and horror.
Does she suffer from depression or is she possessed by a demon?
The question arises when you meet Patricia, known as Pat, author of erotic novels.
Definitions presented in the introduction to “Shining Vale”, the first episode of which is posted online on Sunday March 6 on StarzPlay (whose programs are available in certain Canal + offers), underline that, in both cases, the symptoms are the same. … Married and mother of two teenagers, this 50-year-old leaves New York to move with her family to a large house in Shining Vale, a small town of barely 1,800 inhabitants, in the state of Connecticut.
A change of environment intended to save his marriage, since after an extramarital affair of Pat, the couple is at its worst.
Lots of references to horror movies
The heroine, on antidepressants, is seized with hallucinations as soon as she approaches her new home.
Once installed, she thinks she sees a woman in her garden and constantly hears strange noises.
When she confides in her husband, he repeats to her that it must simply be a deer passing by... Pat also suffers from severe white page syndrome, since she has no nothing new written for seven years.
For her first series since "Cougar Town" (2009-2015), an underrated comedy of which she was also a producer, Courteney Cox has found a role to her measure.
The 57-year-old actress impresses by embodying Pat, as much in her anxieties as in her creative impulses under the influence of the spirit of a woman from the 1950s, Rosemary, who haunts the place.
All his playing partners are excellent.
These include Mira Sorvino, in the role of Rosemary, as well as Gus Birney (seen in "Dickinson", on Apple TV +) who lends his features to the eldest daughter of the couple.
The brilliant Judith Light ("Madame is served", "Transparent") also appears in the skin of the mother of Courteney Cox.
By adopting the theme of the haunted house, the codes of horror films and by multiplying references to the genre (the names echo "Shining", "Rosemary's Baby", etc.), "Shining Vale" takes on airs of parody.
The dramatic sound effects, the frenetic production…every exaggeration adds to the comedic effects.
At the creation of this series, we find two masters of humor: Jeff Astrof, who had already worked on "Friends", and Sharon Horgan, to whom we owe the delicious "Catastrophe" (still available on MyCanal and Channel + Series).
However, the atmosphere and the tone of “Shining Vale” take a little time to assert themselves.
Never completely in horror, nor thoroughly in comedy, the strange mixture can confuse.
With only one part posted every week, it is not easy to let yourself be completely carried away by this fiction, but you have to trust its interpreters, Courteney Cox in the lead, to be convinced.
EDITOR'S RATING: 3.5/5
“Shining Vale”,
American series by Jeff Astrof and Sharon Horgan (2022), with Courteney Cox, Greg Kinnear, Mira Sorvino… Episode 1/8 (28 minutes).
