Directed by Jonathan Glazer
Written by Walter Campbell and Michel Faber
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy McWilliams, Lynsey Taylor, Adam Pearson
Music, cinematography, and narrative work together well in UNDER THE SKIN to provide a wonderfully satisfying experience for those who can tolerate ambiguity in a movie.
Johansson plays a sister from another planet that lands on earth with the sole task of picking up men and taking them to her secret place. And it’s not the secret place they anticipate. The roads she cruises relentlessly are in Scotland and a lot of men seem to be available on the highways she travels each night: men who look alike with their penal haircuts, their living-rough clothes, their age. She scrutinizes each man she picks up, looking for certain attributes and then….Well, I’m not going to tell you. It’s too much fun to watch unaware.
Like her quarry, Johansson eventually takes a journey here also, making what would have been one sort of a movie into another more satisfying one.
This is a movie for those who can let go of the usual narrative expectations, give up demanding a complete understanding of the circumstances. But if you can allow the mood, the music, and the images to serve you, they will. Thoroughly lovely film. I immediately bought the ebook.