Jump to the good stuff: The Story | Some Thoughts | The Final Verdict
The Story:
Mysterious Skin is a drama based on the novel of the same name by Scott Heim. It’s about the effects of sexual abuse and a possible alien abduction.
The story involves two young men, Neil McCormick (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Brian Lackey (Brady Corbet), suffering from the effects of an event that happened in 1981, when they were eight years old. The film opens with Neil, who is starting to experience sexual desire for his mother’s boyfriend. When his softball coach (Bill Sage) takes an interest in him, Neil goes along with it. Soon the coach is gaining his trust, and later molests him. It’s a confusing mess for Neil, who is too young to understand what’s going on. Since the coach is good to him, calling him his star player and showering him with sugary cereal and video games, Neil confuses the abuse with love.
Later, at the age of fifteen, Neil searches out men who resemble the coach for sexual gratification and money.
At the age of eight Brian lost consciousness and woke up with a bloody nose in the crawlspace under his home. The last thing he remembers is being on the softball field. He has bouts of bed wetting that anger his father and concern his mother. On Halloween, while alone in a field, he loses consciousness again and wakes with a bloody nose. He then begins to suffer from chronic blackouts, nosebleeds, dreams of long fingers touching his face and a dark figure backlit by a blue light. Using his dreams to piece together the events from his childhood, he begins to believe he was abducted by aliens.
Brian’s search for the truth brings him to Neil and the dramatic conclusion. And that’s all I can say without any spoilers.
Some Thoughts:
Mysterious Skin has great performances from a top-notch cast. Gregg Araki adapted the novel to the screen with an eye for detail and dialog. And although the mystery of what happened to Brian may not be evident at the start of the film, it comes in clear as the story progresses. This is thanks to Araki’s ability to allow to the story to tell itself.
The scenes where Neil and Brian are children have a sense of confusion, mystery, and the fantastic. These scenes are full of bright colors and have an innocence to them, as if being seen through the eyes of a child.
Neil’s story is difficult, and a lesser director would cast judgment on the men who hire him. Araki instead chooses to humanize them. Even when Neil moves to New York City and experiences some of the more tense encounters with johns, Araki shows them as empathetic and flawed.
Although all the acting in Mysterious Skin is excellent, Gordon-Levitt stands out. A lesser actor would have made Neil over the top, but Gordon-Levitt keeps him buttoned down and subdued. He’s dark and brooding, secure in his hometown, but unsure of himself when he moves to New York City.
While everything about Mysterious Skin is well done, the scene where Brian, his sister, and their mother go to the roof to watch a UFO is a bit confusing. It seems to be from Brian’s imagination, but it isn’t fully clear, nor is it ever brought up again. It’s also the only scene that wouldn’t alter the story in the least if it was removed.
Final Verdict:
Mysterious Skin is a superbly crafted film that deals with the difficult topic of sexual abuse. The characters and story are complex, inventive, and engrossing. In short, Mysterious Skin is worthy of your time.