Under the Skin (2013)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Under the Skin (2013) – J. Glazer

Unsettling, and even disturbing, this feature from director Jonathan Glazer (known primarily for music videos) uses experimental techniques in the service of sci-fi plot starring Scarlett Johansson as an alien.  For the first hour or so, Johansson drives around in a van stopping blokes in Scotland to ask directions to various places; it turns out that many of these social interactions were filmed with unsuspecting real people with a hidden camera (Johansson wears a black wig).  A few of these blokes, presumably actors, get in the van and are taken to an isolated house where they are submerged in some black liquid fully nude (the source novel apparently tells us that they will later be eaten on the home planet but this is, thankfully, left out of the movie).  In both the scripted and unscripted moments, men seem to be reacting to Johansson with a certain amount of added interest and even lust.  In the beginning, she seems to encourage this – obviously to lure men to their doom.  But later, as she starts to identify more with the human form that her alien has adopted in order to go undercover on Earth, she shrinks away from this sexual interest, seeking solitude in the lonely Scottish Highlands (perhaps – as we don’t really know her motives since she ceases to speak).  Even there, she is subjected to sexual violence (a warning to viewers).  I’m not sure what things were like on her home planet, but down here on Earth, this alien sadly discovered what male attitudes and behaviour toward women can be like – horrible – and I’m sure Scarlett Johansson knows this only too well (so is it ironic that this is the film where she agreed to have a full frontal nude scene?). As a cinematic experience, Under the Skin holds up, particularly in its willingness to go into bizarre David Lynch territory with its odd visual experiments. But the plot itself is thin and slowly disappears as the move progresses – ordinary viewers might lose interest.