Under the Skin

Under the Skin is a great example of why we need more 60-minute featurettes.  This is a mesmerizing film, featuring a brilliant performance from Scarlett Johansson, that’s about 48 minutes too long.

Johansson plays The Monster, albeit a monster who happens to look like Scarlett Johansson in a hooker costume.  She spends the first act of the film (mostly) driving around Glasgow in a windowless van, hunting for single young men.  When she spots a mark, she pulls over and asks for directions.  Once she has the young man talking, she tries to talk him into the van.  Pro tip:  don’t ever let a stranger lure you into a windowless van, even if that stranger looks like Scarlett Johansson in a hooker costume.

Fun fact: many of the film’s early encounters actually happened.  Johansson spent several days and nights driving around Glasgow in a van wired with microphones and hidden cameras, and she really did stop strangers and try to talk them into the vehicle.  Those who declined were chased after by people with waivers.  Those who accepted met the crew hiding in the back of the van and – you guessed it – signed waivers.

Not so fun fact: Under the Skin’s first act is an hour long, though it only takes the audience about twenty minutes to discern The Monster’s pattern and understand that she is growing and changing.  After that, it’s 40 tedious minutes of more of the same, punctuated by the occasional scene of heartbreak and horror.

Those second two acts move along nicely and keep us engaged, and in so doing they give us an inkling of how wonderful this film may have been as a 60-minute featurette.  Under the Skin creates a wonderful, suspenseful, and uneasy (yet meditative) mood.  It does great things with special effects on a very low budget.  It draws a career-highlight performance from its star, who is such a good actress that she can stand, nude, in front of a mirror and keep this male viewer's eyes locked on her face.

This film has so much going for it, I can only imagine how much better it may have been with a more ruthless edit.  As it stands, Under the Skin is good.  At 60 minutes, it could have been great.