Directed By Austin Peters

Starring – Elizabeth Banks, Lewis Pullman, Luis Gerado Mendez

The Plot – Famed aesthetician Hope Goldman (Banks) is about to take her career to the next level by launching her very own skincare line. However, she soon faces a new challenge when a rival opens a boutique directly across from her store. Suspecting that someone is trying to sabotage her, she embarks on a quest to unravel the mystery of who’s trying to destroy her life.

Rated R for sexual content, graphic nudity, adult language throughout, some violence and brief drug use.

Skincare – Official Trailer | HD | IFC Films (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

The phrase “Based on a true story” should always be taken with a grain of salt, but with all falsities and exaggerations aside, ‘Skincare’ is a compelling and enthralling story about obsession that somehow maintained my faithful investment to a satisfactory experience, despite its abundance of creative problems withering away the impact that it rightfully deserved. Part of this reason could definitely be in the appeal of the dynamic duo of lead performances, which each offer something vitally unconventional to the kinds of roles that Banks and Pullman have taken, to this point in their careers, proving versatility in the opportunities that each of them refuse to take for granted. For Banks, it’s that underlining edginess to Hope that not only feeds into her psychological compulsion to continuously get ahead, but also a thoroughly detected element of narcissism that proves she’s anything but our conventional protagonist, echoing elements of Jake Gyllenhaal’s turn in ‘Nightcrawler’, albeit not quite as dark or demented. For Pullman, he’s able to exert more of a personality that has been subdued in his previous roles, and as it turns out the guy has a rich balance of range that communicates so much emotional dexterity in the subtleties and nuances of his on-point deliveries, prescribing a combustible element to the atmospheres he graces, which pulse and protrude with his rhythms. In addition to the performances, the outline of two dueling competitors is always one that will inevitably capture my attention, and while the film doesn’t fully exploit the lack of limitations that come with an R-rating, the measures that Hope takes to dominate her competition are ones that further blur the line of her own morality, building a snowball of downhill momentum between the story’s developments that reminded me a lot of Netflix’s ‘Beef’, from last year. In particular, the film is aided tremendously by an opening act that doesn’t waste a lot of time establishing the characters and evolving the stakes that produce this overhead cloud of pressure that devours Hope whole. Most refreshing, the film isn’t just a thriller, which would be enough to maintain audience interests, but it’s also benefited by this palpable dark humor that only further outlines the magnitude and devastation of these destructive tendencies, all the while keeping the approachability of the film from losing its appeal in an atmosphere that could feel too dark and unrelatable to the audience. Instead of feeling heavily written or manufactured, the levity feels more like a treasure from the humility and vulnerability of its characters, primarily Hope, who is often the unintentional recipient of her own irresponsible actions meant to add pressure to her neighborly competitor. If Hope had faith in her products, then none of this would be necessary, but her toxic attitude towards capitalism digs a deeper hole with each emphatic dig, surmising a climactic conflict by film’s end that might just be too deep for her to climb out of. Lastly, the film isn’t overly flashy in its presentation, but there is this intentional glow of artificial color schemes to the cinematography that does make the imagery feel like a cosmetics informercial, with soft lighting that emits a conflicting brand of reality to blows within this conflict that are anything but beautiful or radiant. This is where Peters finds his comfort in helming a film that quite nearly gets away from him, primarily garnering artistic merit towards a cheap indie darling of a film that earns every bit of the big screen appeal, all the while seamlessly absorbing the intoxication of the environments that, like those aforementioned advertisements, sell you something that doesn’t actually exist in the devilish details.

NEGATIVES

Make no mistakes about it, there are quite a few blemishes to this foundation that nearly wastes away all of the efforts of its decorated ensemble, beginning with the script that reaches for so much thematically, but actually grasps so little. Between Hope’s interactions with male characters showcasing that they each seek something materialistic from her, the bodily horror of shallow serenity that is often hinted at but never dissected, and the barrage of unexplained elements to the storytelling that I’m still trying to answer, the script never seems interested in diving deeper, and as a result we’re left with a shallow exploration that left plenty more to be desired, especially in the motivation of Hope’s stalker, which quite literally is never revealed. In fact, a lot of this could probably be blamed in the film’s objective to keep this at a slim 90 minutes, which condenses so many arcs into feeling unnaturally developed and therefore unsatisfyingly resolved, leaving these gaps in logic between the drifts that directly undercut what little momentum it’s able to properly muster. On the subject of that stalker storyline, I was praying that it wouldn’t be as predictably obvious as it seemed to be, and to my disdain it was revealed to be the only person that it could’ve been, in order to conjure some kind of shock value to the engagement. ‘Skincare’, like most movies with a whodunnit? element, gives us a couple of characters who it actually could be, but then presents a glaring red flag directly in the middle of the film, where if you’re paying attention to one particular conversation, you could effortlessly decipher how far south this character and their motivation could go, and while we don’t ever get that motivation, the reveal goes exactly the way that I was expecting, but elicited as flatly ineffective and blandly delivered as an afterthought. If they wished to go this obvious route, they should’ve done it with a big revealing scene that unloaded an unrelenting impact, but as it stands comes far too early from the rest of the movie’s climax, wiping the momentum from its third act, before it even moves into frame. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the characters are written too mean-spirited or downright creepy to care or feel even accidental compassion for, leaving a dilemma with just who we’re supposed to embrace in this ridiculously misunderstood conflict. Hope sabotages on her own insecurities and uses people to get what she wants out of life, and this neighborly adversary receives no semblance of backstory or characterization, so he comes across as a bland spot-filler until the film absolutely requires him. With Hope, they could’ve made her appealing with some semblance of a moral compass, but as the film proceeds, she becomes even more unsalvageable, and it quickly gives the audience little to invest in, as it rounds the corner to confrontation, especially with the stakes that couldn’t hit with me, even in a highly impactful final act. This is where I think an additional ten minutes of backstory and exposition could’ve highlighted the woman behind the persona, especially in that we’re constantly told Hope’s investment to making this company work, but never shown it in ways that outline the bigger picture within her own bleak situation, leaving her the monster who is orchestrating the mayhem, instead of the vulnerable workhorse forced to adapt to overwhelming odds and circumstances.

OVERALL
‘Skincare’ is a tautly rendered thriller with just enough firepower in its bickering rivalry to keep audiences glued, even when the blemishes of a surface level script continuously lets them down with unanswered questions and one heavily predictable mystery to its monotony. Elizabeth Banks prospers outside of her comfort zone with a layer-shedding portrayal as Hope Goldman that restores radiance to the film’s foundation, and while Peters execution is ultimately and unfortunately defined by what could’ve been, his product evades false advertising in the entertainment value that it continuously supplants to an effortless 90-minute engagement, with a cautionary tale on capitalistic obsession that gets under your skin.

My Grade: 6/10 or C