Under the Skin

I remember the first time I traveled overseas by myself; it was a week and a half long journey through the beautiful country of Spain. My boss had just seen Hostel for the first time and absolutely freaked out! The day before my flight, he pulls me to the side, and pleads with me to watch my back! "I know you Kelly, you're gonna run into some girls and end up without your liver!" I of coursed laughed at him and reminded him that it was just a movie. But wouldn't you know it, I did run into a pack of beautiful Spanish girls my second night there; and we were somehow able to hold a conversation even though they could barely speak English and I could only speak Spanglish at best. After the bar closed they rather easily convinced me to party with them late night and it was at this moment when we were walking down these dark gothic alleyways that I came to the realization that I was the dumb American tourist who was probably about to get mugged. The next thing I know, one of the girls does a secret knock on what looked like a normal wall, and soon after a small slit in this wall opened. The eye on the other side of the slit took a quick look around and let us all in.  I nearly cried tears of joy when I saw that it was a normal after hours bar they had taken me to and not some pit of despair!

There is a point to this rambling story and that is that you can convince men to do almost anything if a beautiful woman and the slightest chance of sex is involved. And this is exactly what Scarlett Johannson and her alien brothers rely on to abduct and destroy humans for presumably research or maybe even food. I don't know how Jonathan Glazer can afford to eat and pay rent when he only makes one indie film every ten years; maybe this is an autobiography of sorts and he himself seduces and eats men in his cottage in Great Britain. But apparently he still possesses the power to convince Nicole Kidman to take a naked bath with a kid in Birth and can also convince ScarJo to get naked on camera for the first time in her career. Yes boys and girls, you read that correctly; there is no body double in this movie for Scarlett Johansson. And her body is everything you dreamed it would be. I have crazy respect for her embracing her curves and not being afraid to show them on screen, as opposed to some of her counterparts who got into Hollywood and became disgusting bike rails. See Angelina Jolie, Zoe Saldana, Michael Jackson, and so on.

This is a visually stunning and engrossing film. It takes its time telling its story but once you get to the end, you certainly aren't disappointed. Glazer takes you, in his own way, from the arrival of the aliens to our planet on to ScarJo apparently replacing her predecessor in a rather creepy scene where she undresses her and takes on her human identity. From that point on, she starts her mission of picking up lonely men on the streets of Scotland in her child molester van. Once they get in, she starts flirting with them and they eventually end up back at her shady home. And this is where men thinking with the wrong head is on full display; all of the warning signs are there but when you are in Scotland and a woman like Scarjo randomly picks you up, you take the risk and don't ask any questions.

She ruthlessly traps man after man without regard for anything else that is going on around them. There is one scene on the beach that serves as the perfect example of this involving a baby, which absolutely breaks your heart. Soon however, after studying and observing human behavior she starts to gain interests in our world and in our ways and the film takes an unexpected turn. But not the kind you would normally expect.

The score alone creeps you out as it sounds like a darker version of the music you would normally hear playing while the Roger Moore version of James Bond would sneak around the lab of an evil scientist. Stanley Kubrick would jump all over these musicians for his next project if here still alive!  And I don't believe that Scotland was a random location choice either; the fact that you can barely understand word of what they are saying helps you identify with this beautiful foreigner. Plus the drabness of the weather and the nature heavy background helps create this dark ominous setting.

My mind was blown away when you finally see what is happening to the abducted humans as visually alone its stunning. And the final scene is something that will be forever embedded in my brain. Scarlett Johannson is mesmerizing in this film and she is one of the select few in Hollywood that could be on screen for two hours without saying much at all and completely keep my attention; with or without getting naked.

I absolutely loved this film and its one of my favorites of the year so far without a doubt. I rate this movie as TIGHT!