MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Mysterious Skin Review
Spotted in Indianapolis Star:
Film about child sexual abuse dares viewer to look at subject differently
Mysterious Skin
• Cast: Brady Corbet, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Elisabeth Shue, Bill Sage, Michelle Trachtenberg, Jeffrey Licon, Chase Ellison, George Webster.
• Location: Key Cinemas.
• Running time: 99 minutes.
• Rating: Not rated; language, violence, nudity, strong sexuality, drugs.
By Christopher Lloyd
christopher.lloyd@indystar.com
Haunted, harrowing and seductive, "Mysterious Skin" is one of the most audacious films ever made about the sexual abuse of children. Directed and written by Gregg Araki (based on the novel by Scott Heim ), "Skin" is at once disturbing and beguiling. It dares to show both the charismatic power an abuser can have over a child, and the insidious effects that abuse has, burrowing its way so deep it resides in the bones.
"Skin" follows two boys from a tiny Kansas town who barely know each other, even though they play on the same Little League team. Neil is the best player on the club, outgoing and good-looking, and he quickly becomes the coach's favorite. Brian is runty and wears Coke-bottle glasses, can't play a lick, and is so quiet and introverted it's like he's trying to erase himself.
In the summer of their eighth year, Brian and Neil each has an experience, at once entrancing and traumatic, that will set the courses of their lives in very different directions and yet bind them together.
Neil has a lengthy sexual relationship with the coach of his team -- a blond, handsome all-American type who entices with the lure of sweet treats stocked in his cabinets and the role of a father figure missing from the boy's broken home.
Brian, after seeing what he believes is a UFO, starts having dreams involving aliens with buggy eyes and snaky fingers stroking his face. His frequent blackouts and nosebleeds contribute to the mystery.
Flash 10 years later. Brian (Brady Corbet ) has become a reclusive college student who still lives with his mom and spends his nights scribbling drawings of his alien nightmares. After seeing a TV report about a nearby farmgirl named Avalyn (Mary Lynn Rajskub ) who claims to have been abducted by aliens, Brian seeks her out and she encourages him to unlock what she claims are suppressed memories of his own UFO encounter.
A dangerous road
Neil has chosen a darker road and becomes a street hustler. Sitting in a gay bar with his sycophantic friend Eric (Jeffrey Licon), Neil coldly estimates that he's been paid to have sex with every man in the room. He can't wait to get out of town and join his best friend Wendy (Michelle Trachtenberg) in New York, where both greater opportunity and danger await.
Neil is played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a powerful and charismatic performance that will stun those who know him only for his role as the geeky kid on the goofball TV comedy "Third Rock From the Sun." Sleepy-eyed and usually stoned, Neil slouches nonchalantly through life, willing to sell his lean young body to older men -- not because he likes it, but because it's the only thing he knows. He regards his seductive powers much like an Old West cowboy felt about his six-gun -- reliably within reach whenever needed.
The most difficult scenes to watch, but also the most compelling, detail Neil's childhood relationship with the coach. The older man is played by Bill Sage, who is so naturalistic and nonthreatening that it actually becomes difficult for the audience to generate ire for him, despite the despicable things he does to a little boy. Young Neil is portrayed by Chase Ellison in a knockout turn that conveys the innocent fascination -- and even twisted affection -- a child can develop for his abuser.
Araki stages the physical interaction between man and boy so masterfully that it's only with careful examination that one realizes they're not actually coming into contact with each other.
"Mysterious Skin" is an amazing cinematic experience because it takes a societal ill that evokes near-universal repulsion and makes you think about it in daringly unexpected ways -- some of which may well disturb viewers.
Film about child sexual abuse dares viewer to look at subject differently
Mysterious Skin
• Cast: Brady Corbet, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Elisabeth Shue, Bill Sage, Michelle Trachtenberg, Jeffrey Licon, Chase Ellison, George Webster.
• Location: Key Cinemas.
• Running time: 99 minutes.
• Rating: Not rated; language, violence, nudity, strong sexuality, drugs.
By Christopher Lloyd
christopher.lloyd@indystar.com
Haunted, harrowing and seductive, "Mysterious Skin" is one of the most audacious films ever made about the sexual abuse of children. Directed and written by Gregg Araki (based on the novel by Scott Heim ), "Skin" is at once disturbing and beguiling. It dares to show both the charismatic power an abuser can have over a child, and the insidious effects that abuse has, burrowing its way so deep it resides in the bones.
"Skin" follows two boys from a tiny Kansas town who barely know each other, even though they play on the same Little League team. Neil is the best player on the club, outgoing and good-looking, and he quickly becomes the coach's favorite. Brian is runty and wears Coke-bottle glasses, can't play a lick, and is so quiet and introverted it's like he's trying to erase himself.
In the summer of their eighth year, Brian and Neil each has an experience, at once entrancing and traumatic, that will set the courses of their lives in very different directions and yet bind them together.
Neil has a lengthy sexual relationship with the coach of his team -- a blond, handsome all-American type who entices with the lure of sweet treats stocked in his cabinets and the role of a father figure missing from the boy's broken home.
Brian, after seeing what he believes is a UFO, starts having dreams involving aliens with buggy eyes and snaky fingers stroking his face. His frequent blackouts and nosebleeds contribute to the mystery.
Flash 10 years later. Brian (Brady Corbet ) has become a reclusive college student who still lives with his mom and spends his nights scribbling drawings of his alien nightmares. After seeing a TV report about a nearby farmgirl named Avalyn (Mary Lynn Rajskub ) who claims to have been abducted by aliens, Brian seeks her out and she encourages him to unlock what she claims are suppressed memories of his own UFO encounter.
A dangerous road
Neil has chosen a darker road and becomes a street hustler. Sitting in a gay bar with his sycophantic friend Eric (Jeffrey Licon), Neil coldly estimates that he's been paid to have sex with every man in the room. He can't wait to get out of town and join his best friend Wendy (Michelle Trachtenberg) in New York, where both greater opportunity and danger await.
Neil is played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a powerful and charismatic performance that will stun those who know him only for his role as the geeky kid on the goofball TV comedy "Third Rock From the Sun." Sleepy-eyed and usually stoned, Neil slouches nonchalantly through life, willing to sell his lean young body to older men -- not because he likes it, but because it's the only thing he knows. He regards his seductive powers much like an Old West cowboy felt about his six-gun -- reliably within reach whenever needed.
The most difficult scenes to watch, but also the most compelling, detail Neil's childhood relationship with the coach. The older man is played by Bill Sage, who is so naturalistic and nonthreatening that it actually becomes difficult for the audience to generate ire for him, despite the despicable things he does to a little boy. Young Neil is portrayed by Chase Ellison in a knockout turn that conveys the innocent fascination -- and even twisted affection -- a child can develop for his abuser.
Araki stages the physical interaction between man and boy so masterfully that it's only with careful examination that one realizes they're not actually coming into contact with each other.
"Mysterious Skin" is an amazing cinematic experience because it takes a societal ill that evokes near-universal repulsion and makes you think about it in daringly unexpected ways -- some of which may well disturb viewers.
posted by Simon Hayes Budgen at 5:23 AM
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