Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brady Corbet, Michelle Trachtenberg, Elisabeth Shue
Directed by: Gregg Araki
Written by: Gregg Araki (Novel by Scott Heim)
Studio: Desperate Pictures
Perhaps Gregg Araki's most coherent and traditional story (in a narrative sense), Mysterious Skin is a story about paedophilia and how it scars its victims. This isn't a feel-gooder, folks. But it is fantastic and engaging and you should see it.
The principal characters are Brian and Neil - both were on the same little league baseball team in the very early 1980's and both were taken advantage of (sexually) by their coach. Before the abuse, both children couldn't have been more dissimilar.
Neil realized and embraced his homosexuality at a surprisingly young age, while Brian could barely talk to his baseball peers let alone a girl; Neil, ever the extrovert, never thought to conceal his emotions, while Brian knew of no other approach to those strange feelings percolating inside him. Both, though, did have neglectful fathers.
And it is this shared vulnerability that Coach undoubtedly preyed on. As a result of his lustful actions, these two children’s life trajectory was forever skewed. Rather than (and this is really just conjecture about a possible future for a fictional life, so take it with a pound of salt) Neil learning that he needs to contain some of his eruptions and let others emote and Brian to open up a little, the two instead take their tendencies to extremes. Neil becomes a gay gigolo, Brian totally cut off from the world outside his mother’s house and asexual.
Much of the film is just exploring how miserable they are, as well as the odd people they come across. For instance, Brian in trying to understand his strange recurring dreams (of being abducted by aliens, ultimately revealed as a cognitive allegory for the abuse episode), comes across a girl suffering from MS (I think, don’t quote me here). She, yearning for companionship and love, initiates sex with Brian, who of course stops the attempt and demands that she leave his room. And Neil, poor Neil, just catches everyone’s eye (boys and girls) but only concerns himself with satisfying those wounded older men deprived of a sexual revolution that want to use him in such a way that he (falsely) feels empowered.
One can look at the film and want, given the depressing subject matter of the film, to see it as a remediative arch – that is, the inciting incident is the (psychological) injury and the restorative event comprises the ending. It’s true, the audience is left seeing Brian crying, shaking, and bleeding from the nose in Neil’s arms - and Neil showing some empathy for once, all in the Coach’s old living room where the rapes occurred. But, in true Araki fashion, we’re not left with just visuals: a group of invasive Christmas Eve carolers sing Silent Night at the doorstep of the Coach’s old home and Neil leaves us with a somber and sobering monologue:
“And as we sat there listening to the carolers, I wanted to tell Brian it was over now and everything would be okay. But that was a lie. Plus, I couldn't speak anyway. I wish there was some way for us to go back and undo the past. But there wasn't. There was nothing we could do. So I just stayed silent and trying to, telepathically communicate how sorry I was about what had happened. And I thought of all the grief and sadness...and fucked up suffering in the world...and it made me want to escape. I wished with all my heart that we could just, leave this world behind. Rise like two angels in the night and magically...disappear.”
They’re fucked, like everyone else they’ve known, and coming to terms won’t change anything. Sure, they have each other now, but when there’s so much suffering and viciousness (often directed at the Self) all around, even with professional help, both these bastards will have to contend with ordinary, everyday mementos of their corruption indefinitely.
Writing: Writing has never been Araki's strongest point (not that he's a hack or anything), but here his penmanship really shines. Of course, it doesn't hurt that this is an adaptation, but nevertheless Araki makes the dialog his own (i.e. full of strange, colorful expressions) and paints a picture showing just how sexual abuse has come to affect every aspect of these two lives.
Direction: In his tried-and-true style, Araki gets so much information across (especially during the paedophilia scenes) without having to show the nitty-gritty. Araki is not concerned with displaying abjection, but making damn sure we just feel it. It's also those little touches, like having Neil's eyes pure blue as a youngster but slightly corrupted by specks of hazel in his young adult years, that remind us that directorial vision (born and guided by the script of course) and execution are indispensable in good filmmaking.
Acting: Despite not sharing a scene together until the very end, JGL and Brady Corbett fit their performances with such disparate nuance that we just know shits going to go down hard when they meet again. We get how Neil's self-medication/destruction encompasses every aspect of his existence and how Brian's total reclusiveness has deprived him of life.
Michelle Trachtenberg can't act for a gram though.
Editing: Interestingly enough, it's the scenes with MZ T that feel a little too long. hmmmmm.....
Sound: Araki is always very minimalistic and tight with sounds - no Schumacher-esque inserts anywhere. Very organic.
Soundtrack/Score: What can I say, Araki's movies (even the shittier ones at the beginning of his career) have excellent soundtracks. This one is no different.
Self-Awareness: I was half-expecting Araki to throw in something that references his other, more chaotic movies - but he decided not to. Which is apropos, given the gravid nature of the film's content.
Overall rating: **** 1/2
~Ian
