![\"undertheskin\"](\"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/undertheskin.jpg\")
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Under The Skin<\/a> (2013)<\/strong> Spoilers ahead.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n While waiting in line\u00a0for the bathroom, I couldn’t help but overhear two women talking about the movie we had all just come from.<\/p>\n “Totally pointless. What was that even about?”<\/span><\/p>\n “Nothing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I guess on the surface I can see how this film could seem pointless. I mean, I get it\u2014long silences, abstract cinematography, and alien invaders just don\u2019t really do it for some people. However, I couldn’t help but think that maybe the reason they didn’t understand the movie was because they weren’t looking in the right place; this isn\u2019t actually a movie about an \u201calien seductress [that] preys upon the population of Scotland” as its IMDB tagline says, it\u2019s a movie about <\/i>women and their place in modern society.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Under The Skin follows Scarlett Johansson’s character as she drives the streets of Scotland looking to pick up men for sex. With\u00a0her eager demeanor and saucy\u00a0looks, she lures her\u00a0unsuspecting victims\u00a0into a\u00a0sort of trans-dimensional feeding chamber\u00a0and then immediately sets\u00a0out to find more. However, after picking up a strikingly disfigured young man, along with a chance encounter with a mirror, something clicks inside of her head and she suddenly develops empathy. We then follow her as she then wanders the countryside\u00a0in an attempt to\u00a0discover herself.<\/span><\/p>\n I went into Under The Skin expecting something mindless or violent, and instead left feeling fairly bummed out. The movie is certainly vicious, but the overall tone is one of despair. I couldn\u2019t help but see the plight of her character as a metaphor for the condition of being female\u2013she’s cast by those around her as\u00a0either\u00a0predator or prey. When Johansson’s character is\u00a0the predator, she\u2019s a cold, heartless sex machine with no morals and an animalistic need to consume. Yet\u00a0upon her discovery of her own more human emotions she\u2019s quickly devoured by the world around her.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I find it fairly easy to apply these bleak lessons to the plight of women in general. Kindness, empathy, and free-flowing emotion are all traits we ascribe to women\u2013 traits we ultimately look down upon as weaknesses when it comes to survival. Under The Skin shows exactly how the protagonist’s\u00a0gaining of humanity\u00a0directly becomes her\u00a0downfall. The disturbing\u00a0beach scene demonstrates this theme most succinctly, as we are shown\u00a0how compassion opens up to\u00a0vulnerability, a trait that ultimately leads to\u00a0death.<\/span><\/p>\n Furthermore,\u00a0with or without humanity,\u00a0our protagonist is still\u00a0victim to subjugation by the men around her.\u00a0When she\u2019s the predator, it is because she has been brought into this role by her male overseers; when she\u2019s the prey, men at every corner mercilessly hunt her.\u00a0<\/span>This connection\u00a0between Johansson’s character and women in general\u00a0was only further hammered home for me during\u00a0the last scene.\u00a0The disgust that her attacker feels when he realizes she is beyond the simple sex object he expected, and the violence with which he reacts towards her, is sadly a recognizably common experience for women across the globe.<\/p>\n It’s not all completely death and despair in Under The Skin though. The camerawork here is exceptional\u2014the mood set by director Jonathan Glazer and cinematographer Daniel Landin is worth the ticket price alone. If you don’t leave the theater in a dreamlike daze, maybe\u00a0you<\/em>\u00a0are the real alien. I loved the usage of monochrome colors and large shapes in place of a more traditional, clich\u00e9 Sci-Fi design\u2014going abstract with it made it creepy and plausibly otherworldly. I was also pleased with the equal opportunity male nudity;\u00a0it’s pretty rare to find a movie where the camera objectifies the men, and keeps the female form in the shadows.<\/span><\/p>\n Last but not least, Scarlett Johansson gives a fantastic performance that, call me cynical, I wasn’t expecting. I wasn\u2019t a fan before, but she not only pulled off the role, she hugely upped my respect for her as an actress. She doesn\u2019t have more than a handful of lines of written dialogue in the entire film (and apparently her drive-by pickup attempts were largely improvised) but her facial expressions\u2014all at once, alien and empathetic\u2014tells the story well.<\/span><\/p>\n I was very impressed with the depth of this film, and this year is really shaping up to be the year of the surreal<\/a>. <\/b>Under The Skin certainly deserves a place on that list of mine.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\nDirected by Jonathan Glazer
\nScreenplay by Jonathan Glazer & Walter Campbell
\nBased on a novel by Michel Faber
\n108 min.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n