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Aug 27, 2014 Web Exclusive By Alee Karim

Over the course of Under the Skin‘s 108 minute runtime, the film is alternately a Tarkovskian sci-fi meditation, a digital video art installation, and an extended candid camera punking riff. In terms of plot, the film is deceptively focused: Scarlett Johansson plays an unnamed and unidentified alien being who ensnares men with flirtation and lures them to their deaths in a murky pool, sealing them in its depths like flies in honey—this is the Tarkovksy part. According to the novel upon which the film is loosely based, she is in fact “mining” these men for sustenance to be shared with her home planet, though like the exposition-shy Russian director, Under the Skin helmer Jonathan Glazer gives us at most an image or two to even suggest this possibility. The mostly-visual, unexplained experience of Under the Skin works for the most part, as the holy trinity of Glazer’s visual acumen, Johansson’s powerfully expressive dominant female gaze and swagger, and composer Mica Levi’s haunting Hermann-esque leitmotifs wield an uncanny alchemy throughout, mostly in the aforementioned entrapment scenes.

When Glazer takes the reins and focuses on the visuals, most notably in his impressionistic take on Ms. Johansson’s rendezvous with Earth, which features neither the actress nor a spaceship, it’s quite stunning and occasionally moving, if also occasionally undermining the narrative flow of the film itself. Where the film becomes inconsistent is during Ms. Johansson “pick-up” routine in which she offers rides to male Scottish pedestrians, none of whom are actors, all of whom are, presumably, reacting in the moment to Ms. Johansson’s advances. For a film this stylistically focused, it feels like a misstep to introduce amateur foils to such an arresting lead performance. Without giving too much away, there are some exceptional and powerful interactions she develops with these unwitting johns (particularly with Scottish unknown, Adam Pearson), but to squander the finite timespan of film on anything less than this—such as a scene in which she’s harassed by random passersby, seemingly for no reason, then drives away, seemingly without struggle-takes the audiences enthusiasm for the film’s successes for granted. Glazer’s vision for a new take on SF in film is, however, strong and Johansson, Levi, and the Scottish countryside are heroic allies in that vision; a well-played if mildly uneven feat. (www.a24films.com/films/under-the-skin-2)

Author rating: 6.5/10