We begin with a prick of light, which grows and grows until suddenly, we are in a darkened highway in Scotland, following a biker. We watch as he stops, goes into the bushes, and retrieves the body of a woman, tossing it into a van parked on the side of the road. The scene then cuts to an endless stretch of bright light (seemingly the inside of the van), in which a naked woman (Scarlett Johansson) methodically removes the clothing of the previous woman's body and dresses herself, eerily focused on the task at hand. This new woman, who later calls herself Laura, is our protagonist.
This initial scene is a great glimpse of what the rest of the film will be like, because director Jonathan Glazer (Birth, Sexy Beast) has given us a relentless dose of dark, bizarre abstraction with this very loose adaptation of Michel Faber's novel of the same name. A chilling musical score eases us into the plot as Laura begins driving her van around Glasgow, stopping time after time to ask for directions, and chatting up the men that give them to her. She asks where they're from, if they have family in the area, if they have a girlfriend... her flirtatious conversation immediately entices the men, especially after she invites them to come home with her. But something is not quite right with Laura, as our first encounter with her can attest... when the conversations end, her face drops back to a cold, blank slate, void of any sort of emotion; and when she lures the men back to her house for what they believe is a chance to have sex with her, she leads them straight into some sort of strange, black pool, trapping them inside -- all with that same, emotionless face. We quickly realize that Laura is involved in some sort of alien scheme (and very possibly alien herself).
The Biker serves as a sort of protector, cleaning up after the messes that invariably arise from her encounters, covering her tracks and looking after her -- there is a scene in which he inspects Laura, giving the sense that he is checking to make sure everything's okay. It is still unclear what exactly is happening -- it appears that they are harvesting organs in this pool, but it is never laid out for you, and you are never sure where exactly Laura and the Biker have come from -- but you get the idea that Laura has been created, and strictly for a purpose.
But as Laura continues to ensnare men, she begins to feel empathy for them, an emotion that becomes all too real for her when she looks in the mirror and realizes that she looks like them. As the plot progresses, Laura evolves from cold, calculating bad-guy to a sort of childlike protagonist; this film is in some way a coming-of-age story... a very dark, very disturbing, and very different coming-of-age story, wrought with an abstract study of gender roles. Scarlett Johansson's nuanced performance is perhaps her best yet: never have I seen a role so tailored for this actress, putting to use her infamous sensuality and her signature blank expressions and combining them in a creatively different way than we've seen before (it's like Arnold Schwarzenegger being a perfect fit for his role as the Terminator). But even at her most stone cold, Laura's emotions seep through, tangling you up in her character.
The film is also a great snapshot of Scottish life. You get a varied mix of the different types of people and personalities, and the stunning views of the countryside. Many of the men that Laura picks up were not actors at all, but simply real people caught on a hidden camera, unwittingly engaging in conversation with Scarlett Johansson. This was a brilliant move by Glazer, making the landscape of the film feel so vivid and real.
With beautiful cinematography, a chilling score, and an amazing character sketch of a story, Under The Skin is a film you should be sure to catch... just make sure you give it your full attention. This is not a film to let your mind drift... if you do, the film will just be frustrating. Come see it this week at the Midtown Cinema!
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