Under The Skin

Film (2013)

Starring Scarlett Johansson

A mysterious, seductive and nameless woman played by Scarlett Johansson has a way of making guys disappear. We’re not quite sure why. She picks them up and they wind up wandering into a suspicious black goo which she is able to lead them into without getting sucked under herself. She’s obviously not your average girl. She’s aided in this seductive retrieval by very fast moving motorcyclists who handle the bodies when they have not already been goo-ified and take care of them otherwise. Gradually, through her interactions with vulnerable, lonely and sometimes caring men, she begins to show a bit of heart. Nonetheless, the world remains a cruel place, even for the supranormal.

Too bad – this beautiful girl is just up to no good. And, as we make our way though this film, without too much guidance or instruction from its director, we gradually begin to get the idea. She’s heartless – through no fault of her own – and we begin to see she’s not at all human. Magically, and I suppose predictably and sentimentally, she seemingly begins to develop a heart from osmotic contact with the human species. In the end, that bit of the human is just enough of a Trojan Horse to make a grim tale with an aura of hope even grimmer.

This is a slow moving and confusing film to watch. If you are captivated by auras and mysteries and like dark, malevolent-seeming scenes with scratchy music and no dialogue to speak of, then this is a film for you. For my money, I kept wanting more – a little sense of who this was, where she came from, why she did these awful things to people – just a little taste of narrative explanation.

But the filmmaker seems content simply to create an effect. Certainly, watching Scarlett Johansson’s captivating face, and her body in various stages of undress, gives warmth to a film that is otherwise dark and cold. Most dreary science fiction films at least tease us with a bit of explanation, but this, perhaps, is the new non-conceptual wave of rendering atmosphere at the expense of narrative, seemingly hooked on mood and forgetful or neglectful of anything that gives context and meaning.

Are they aliens, devils, evil superheroes or what? This film doesn’t bother to tell us, and just hopes that as we drink in the dark atmosphere and wade through the black goo we will be satisfied just to know that something’s up to no good, but vulnerable, in the end, to human feeling. Within a grim, groping and grotesque fantasy, it’s an unexpectedly sweet thought.

– BADMan