Queen of Earth

This claustrophobic drama by writer-director Alex Ross Perry (‘Listen Up Phillip’) plays like a cousin to Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 classic ‘Persona’, in which two women are thrown together in an isolated house for the summer. Elisabeth Moss (‘Mad Men’) stars as Catherine, who flees into ‘exile’ in upstate New York after her artist father dies and her boyfriend dumps her.

Catherine’s sour, snobby best friend Virginia (Katherine Waterston, intense) might not be the best company, but her lake house is sweet. Still, the fur begins to fly – both in happier flashbacks and an increasingly vicious present. An open wound, Moss is terrific, yet ‘Queen of Earth’ feels a touch brittle and precious, like the swirly pink-hued script Perry employs for his end credits.