Mysterious Skin (2004) Film Review

I like what Steve McQueen, the filmmaker not the actor, said about his film Shame. "Shame is my response to being lost." I feel like a lot of my favorite movies explore the topic of being lost, following characters who are trying to find their way in life either through good or bad decisions. My all time favorite film Requiem For A Dream and a recent favorite of mine Happiness are similar in that they bring us into the worlds of these people that we would never try to understand otherwise. The reason these films intrigue me is because they are trying to explore and understand the why behind these people. Why does someone fall into drug addiction? Why does someone have countless sex with prostitutes and girls but then can't actually get it up with someone who is interested in him? Even if the movie doesn't exactly answer all the questions it brings up, its creating that discussion with yourself and your friends and helps us realize that there is always more to people than what they present at the surface. That is where Mysterious Skin comes in as another example of a film trying to explore the why behind it's two main protagonists. Being a Joseph Gordon-Levitt fan I wanted to see him in an indie project before he hit it big and hopefully watch a compelling, honest film at the same time.

Mysterious Skin is a film, written and directed by Gregg Araki, that follows Neil McCormick (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Brian Lackey (Brady Corbet) from the young ages of 8 years old and then to when they are young adults. Both boys played on a little league baseball team and were unfortunately sexually abused by their baseball coach. Neil remembers everything about his coach and grows up to be a homosexual prostitute, hanging out on playgrounds to find old men looking for young guys. Brian on the other hand cannot remember anything about his coach and suffers from amnesia because of the trauma he received. Instead he believes he was abducted by aliens and experimented on leading to a minor obsession with UFOs and extraterrestrials. Throughout the film we follow Neil as he dives deeper and deeper into the world of gay prostitution and Brian who tries to find out what happened to himself when he was 8 years old and why he can't remember it.

Mysterious Skin accomplishes two things exceptionally in my opinion throughout the film. The first one is that use of closeups during the "intimate" scenes. Director Gregg Araki wants to make you feel just as these boys felt when going through these experiences and he doesn't make it easy. The extreme close up of the baseball coach as he takes advantage of Neil was eerily scary from my perspective and almost made me look away. Still I was glad to see that Araki wasn't going to shy away from this perspective, making us look into a face evil with the helplessness and hopelessness that these boys felt like they have no control over. That is where the film shines in my opinion. We as an audience are helpless to what the director shows us, we do not have a choice to run or scream for help giving us a unique look into Neil and Brain's world. This is one of the few films that I have watched that gave me that sincere sense of being trapped and I applaud it for that.

The film also does a good job in its two main characters, showing us how such a traumatic event can change the course of a young man's life in such different and dramatic ways. Neither character felt fake or cliche but instead I could believe these characters and their struggle. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Brady Corbet do a great job throughout the film because of the little things they do nonverbally. Joseph Gordon-Levitt never comes out and says it to our face but through his actions and nonverbal communication shows the deep insecurity and instability that Neil is facing because he is in denial about his true feelings. Corbet on the other hand shows us a young man who literally does not want to accept the truth that deep down he knows. The excitement and joy in his eyes and face when he talks about the possibility of aliens experiments reflects later in the film with the sorrow and disgust with that actually happened to him with he was 8 years old.

Araki does a solid job with the direction, as I said before his close ups are brilliant, and does a good job and bringing us into this world without being over the top. It's a film that doesn't try to be in your face about its subject matter but instead want to give you an honest portrayal. Now that said there seemed to be some editing decisions that I did not agree with. At points the film seems to hop back and forth all over the place really quickly. The transitions and fades move rapidly face which made them feel forced and takes you out of the movie for a few seconds. A few smoother transitions throughout the film would have made the first half a better experience but luckily the story and characters carry the film in the second half.

The movie is a harsh look into what happens to young men who have been sexually abused. It is not trying to say this is what happens to everyone but this is what happened to these two guys. It is brutal at times, honest, and other times heartbreaking. The world can be a tough place to grow up whether you are 8 or you are 18. These boys feel lost in a world that wants to take advantage of them. Hopefully we can look to look beyond the surface and try our best to understand each other and the journeys we walk every day.

4/5