Alright, a movie where Scarlett Johansson plays a mysterious alien who tries to see how fast she can lure men into her van must be the cat’s meow, right? She’s not shy about shedding her clothes, either. Piquing your interest, you say? Not a bad turnaround from Johansen’s role in Her, where we didn’t get to see her at all, but fell in love with her voice?
Johannson is swell in Under The Skin, Jonathan Glazer’s first film in nine years. Before you hear about the movie itself, though, how about if I told you the men she tempts to come with her into the van were not actors but men off the street who were secretly photographed with hidden cameras? They not only didn’t know they were in a movie, they didn’t recognize our Scarlet? Wow. She may be wearing a black wig, but hey, this is Scarlet Johansen here! The movie takes place in Scotland, where her clueless victims of prey with incomprehensible accents seem like the real aliens here–get it?…That, my dear reader, is probably ALL you will get in this film if you’re looking for any metaphorical or allegorical significance.
Although Under The Skin is based on a novel by Michel Faber, Glazer (Sexy Beast) strips out the back-story and essentially sends any exposition to the shredder. We do know these guys Scarlet lures routinely follow her into a mysterious house while she strips down, only to find themselves sinking into a pool of black ooze as they walk toward her. She wasn’t given an empathy transfer when transformed into her earthling body, either. Otherwise, she wouldn’t leave a crying abandoned baby on the beach while she crushes the skull of a surfer who tried to rescue the baby’s drowning parents. Scarlet comes around, though. She meets a dude stricken with “The Elephant Man” disease and actually shows empathy by complementing him on his beautiful hands. She even decides to try out this human romance thing when she meets a kind man, but finds herself with an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction, if you get what I mean. That’s about it for the “plot” here.
Not to worry, if you appreciate an intensely crafted work that weaves its eager-to-be-clever puzzle with unique special effects, an effective score by Mica Levi, and panache to spare. If, on the other hand, you’re averse to films that build their enigmas with undue deliberation and sparseness, be careful here. It’s easy to con yourself into thinking Under The Skin’s considerable mysteries yield to even greater heights of subtle wonder at film’s end. More likely, though, you may agree that the whole kit and caboodle merely turns up the ambiguity controls into Sillyland. Glazer, as in his last film, Birth, knows what he is doing in lulling us into a charmingly dread-laden alternate world that however fascinatingly meticulous in style, begs for more substance. While Under The Skin is considerably better than Birth on so many fronts, it shares with it a nagging preposterous quality that, like the film’s mesmerizing mood itself, is hard to shake.