| MYSTERIOUS SKIN |
 2004 – USADirector: Gregg Araki
- Reviewed by Vickie
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Neil, a self-destructive teenager who works as a male hustler in a bid to pass the time in his small Kansas town. Neil is angry, bored and sexually voracious. His best friends (Michelle Trachtenberg, Jeff Licon) know he’s on a road to nowhere, but are powerless to change his course. As a child, Neil was molested by his softball coach (Bill Sage), and that relationship has skewed his reality ever since. Across town is nebbish Brian (Brady Corbet, Thunderbirds), a soft-spoken, bespectacled boy who believes he was abducted by aliens when he was younger. He’s obsessed with finding out what happened to five hours he’s missing from his life, and his quest for answers leads him to a naïve young woman (Mary Lynn Rajskub), who also believes extraterrestrials swept her away for experimentation. As each young man tries to resolve his past in order to settle his present and improve his future, the unraveling of their collective history begins. The duo are bound by a shared event, but neither has much recollection of it until they come together. Kudos go to the young cast for their stirring work. Gordon-Levitt turns in a searing performance that’s simultaneously infuriating (you know better, Neil!) and heartbreaking (you know better, Neil!). Neil is like a wound that never really healed, and Gordon-Levitt infuses him with a reckless bravado that masks his inner pain. Corbet, meanwhile, is an exercise in reeled-in emotion. Brian is completely shut off from his own emotions and wound so tightly that nosebleeds erupt whenever he’s under stress. His desperation is palpable, and the slow wave of recognition that washes over him as his memories return is powerful. They are opposites, yet somehow alike, and both actors rock the hell out of their characters. Araki reveals his skill as a filmmaker and wisely walks a careful line between shock value and exploitation. There’s never anything so graphic that it’s disturbing, but one scene—where Neil incurs the wrath of a psychotic john—is frightfully realistic and difficult to watch. Araki also delivers emotional depth and resonance in this film through full-bodied characters struggling with pain. Mysterious Skin, for all its unpleasantness and darkness, is still a movie with a heart (however bruised and battered) beating at its core. |
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Director Gregg Araki, creator of the teen-apocalypse trilogy, is known
for his visceral, sometimes graphic and often seriously downbeat films.
So, needless to say I was a little wary going to see his latest—a
drama about the psychological repercussions of something terrible
happening to two eight-year-old boys that links them as adults.
Thankfully, the subject matter is handled really well, and the
resulting film is a strong piece of work.
