Customer Reviews

Mysterious Skin (Deluxe Unrated Director's Edition)

5 star:		(100)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I read Scott Heim's novel "Mysterious Skin" a number of years ago, and found it powerful and challenging. When I learned that Gregg Araki was making a film based on the book, I was apprehensive. "Msterious Skin" deals with the long lasting effects of child abuse. The last thing one wants when approaching this subject from an artistic stand point, is to be in any way exploitive. The good news is that Mr. Araki's has triumphed - his is a brilliant film. The performances throughout are outstanding - especially that of Joseph Gordon-Levitt as an in-your-face gay teen who uses sex as a means to an end - whether hustling or simply giving it away. Brady Corbet delivers in the quieter role of Brian, who has so effectively blocked the memory of his abuse that he has come to believe that he may have been a victim of alien abduction.

This is a tough little film, dealing with topics that most people shy away from - child sexual molestation, drug abuse, prostitution and homosexuality. Araki doesn't flinch or shy away from any of them. It is a testsment to his incredible talent that he has made a film from this material which is both palatable and compelling.

Be forewarned: This film takes a frank look at pedophilia, prostitution, and rape from the perspective of two sexually abused boys. If you are honestly interested in understanding the long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse, director Gregg Araki's film is an extremely thoughtful and non-exploitive examination of a painful and relatively neglected film topic.

In Hutchison, Kansas, during the summer of 1981, Neil (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Brian (Brady Corbett), are molested by their little league baseball coach (Bill Sage). Brian's response to the abuse is to blackout and to forget what happened to him. In order to account for his two blackouts, Brian imagines that aliens abducted him. Neil, however, becomes the team's star player, and develops a summer long relationship with Coach. Unlike Brian, Neil both remembers and attempts to control and re-experience his exploitation by becoming a male prostitute. Eventually, Brian, haunted by bizarre dreams, seeks to end his general sense of malaise. After a fellow alien abductee encourages him to follow the clues from his dreams, Brian discovers that he and Neil share a common past.

So many of the things in this film are spot on. In point of fact, boys are more often abused by babysitters, coaches, and teachers. And while Neil tells his best friend Wendy about the abuse (after making her witness his abuse of another boy), neither boy tells his parents. Also, there is no recognizable symptom of sexual abuse; the two boys respond to their experience in remarkable different ways. Neil identifies with his abuser; Brian disassociates himself from his sexuality. Though both boys develop compulsive behaviors, the film skirts clear of oversimplifying their psychological distress. And probable the most painful scene in the film, the revictimization of Neil at the hands of a client, reminds us of one horrible after effect of childhood sexual abuse; abuse victims are more likely to be raped as adolescents and adults.

The weakest links in this film are the portrayals of Wendy (Michelle Trachtenberg) and Mrs. M. (Elisabeth Shue). Both Trachtenberg and Shue are too wholesome for their roles. The "edge" that both Wendy and Mrs. M. should have ( after all, Mrs. M is a single mom who works as a cashier by day while entertaining herself with an ever changing stream of bedmates by night, while Wendy insinuates that she lacks parental care and attention) is conveyed through visual gimmicks (the ubiquitous cigarette, tough make-up and wild hair styles) rather than compelling acting.

Unlike others who have seen this film, I do not think that Araki was seeking to portray Coach as a nice guy, or even as a morally ambiguous guy. Rather, Araki is showing us a true sexual predator - a wolf in sheep's clothing, as it were. Sexual predators work very hard to establish trust -- which requires at least a veneer of niceness - since trust is necessary in order for them to do what they want to do to their child victims. If anything, I thought Araki showed how deeply confusing and painful it was for Neil to grapple with what he wanted to believe about Coach -- that Coach loved and cared about him -- with reality -- Coach's interest in Neil was limited to Neil's usefulness as a means of sexual satisfaction.

The film's final scene, in which Brian and Neil begin to heal a traumatic betrayal of trust by trusting each other, will stay with me for a very long time.

In the summer of '81, Kansas 8-year-olds Neil and Brian are both sexually abused by their Little League coach, but their reactions could not be more different. For the sexually precocious Neil, it's a sexual awakening, setting him on the path to becoming a gay hustler and a life of such emotional numbness that he looks back on Coach as his "one true love". For Brian, it's a hellish experience his brain all but erases with 5 hours of lost time, leaving him shy, remote, unable to engage romantically with anyone, and floundering through adolescence struggling to make sense of what happened to him. It's only when he finally reconnects with Neil after a decade of searching that all the pieces finally fall into place... Gregg Araki's significant achievement here is to make a movie that is as moving as it is pitiless in the depiction of abuse and its consequences. The writing is crisp, the performances brave and convincing (Joseph Gordon-Levitt especially), and it's so brilliantly structured and edited that the only time any abuse is actually "seen" is in the minds of the audience during the moving final confessional sequence. It's hard to believe that this bold and tender film could be criticised for its masterful handling of a difficult subject, yet it aroused the ire of ludicrously conservative film and literature classification bodies here in Australia. Members were apparently alarmed that it might be used as some kind of training video for paedophiles in how to "groom" their victims. On the contrary: rarely has a film so powerfully and effectively argued against abuse by showing its devastating consequences.

That's a pretty big statement coming from me, but there is just something about this subject that turns my stomach in a million different directions, and the way it is depicted on screen is far more graphic than I anticipated.

The film revolves around two boys, Neil and Brian, who happen to both experience abuse at the hands of their soft-ball coach. Both boys are traumatized, but in drastically different ways. As we are introduced to them on the outset of the film through voiceover, we realize that Brian doesn't remember the attack at all and comes to believe that he was actually abducted by aliens. Neil, on the other hand, remembers almost too well. While it is apparent that it has altered his life in disturbing ways, he holds that `summer' in high esteem as a big part of his life. He felt loved and important and special.

My stomach was turning.

As the boys grow up they struggle to make much sense of their life. Brian is haunted by nightmares that scare him, causing him to keep a dream diary that he only shares with another young woman who claims to have been abducted too. Neil turns tricks, sleeping with every man who will look at him twice, sabotaging his own growth by his careless actions. Brian's search for the truth about his childhood eventually brings the two boys together, and gives them both the opportunity to heal; sort of.

I have a few technical issues with the film. For one, every adult in this film is a mere stereotype, and the acting on the part of those adult actors (aside from Elisabeth Shue, who manages to keep some dignity) causes these characters to come off like caricatures. The coach, Brian's mother, Brian's father...and then you have some of the younger characters like Eric and Avalyn who also come off as stereotypical props. Still, my biggest complaint is the blunt way in which the abuse is depicted. I just have a very hard time considering this entertainment. Now, before you jump on a high horse, understand that this is my personal opinion. I have watched quite a few films dealing with controversial subjects and found them breathtaking in their gritty sense of realism and consider them masterpieces. There just has to be SOME line, right? I am very happy to read that the scenes were shot in such a way that the child actors didn't know what was going on (and with that being the case, those two young boys turned in BRILLIANT performances) but when you watch the film it almost seems far too realistic. When it comes to subjects like child abuse, subtlety is far better in my opinion.

There is nothing subtle about `Mysterious Skin', unless you are talking about Joseph Gordon-Levitt's masterclass performance.

So, with all my issues here, I must say that Gordon-Levitt is brilliant here. He understands the complexities of his character and he balances them out effortlessly. You see the guarded insecurity that laces his outlandish and childish behavior. The way he slinks around, his limbs almost moving in any given direction, give off an air of carelessness that is so layered and so detailed. His defenses begin to crumble as he begins to realize that everything he thought lifted him up eventually brought him to his knees.

He hates himself.

I could never see this movie again, and I have a hard time even recommending it, despite Gordon-Levitt's OSCAR worthy performance. This is just such a hard film to watch, and I have such an issue with the depictions of abuse. It's odd because I was having a discussion with some friends the other day about films and artistic liberties and one friend asked if any film had ever gone `too far'? I said no, because art is art and it serves a purpose. Even if it is hard to stomach, it doesn't mean that it is `too far'. That was before I saw this. While I can't say that this film serves no purpose, I can say that this film went `too far' for me.

Ever wonder how two very different people might view a shared experience? This film explores that issue as well as many others, focusing on two boys and the effects of a shared experience which continues to haunt them as they go from boyhood into their teens.
One of the boys believes the experience was wonderful, even a wish fulfillment of sorts while the other goes into total denial..with devestating results.

Based on a noted book, the film stands on its own although it was a rougher experience for me, more "real", since the visuals were so detailed, so hard to watch (at times). Joseph Gordan Levitt is stunning in his portrayal of Neil McCormack as a teen hustler, and he has a special charisma that leaps from the screen.

The other actors do a fine job as well and Michelle Tractenburg reaches new depths in her acting, although she is playing the teen she so often does, but with a harder edge...this isn't the little sister of Buffy. In Mysterious Skin, she is a perfect accomplice/friend to Neil, grounding him when he starts to get crazy, nurturing him when his tough facade wavers.

Viewers who can't handle graphic male/male sexuality should avoid this film and even those who can may find it a tough ride at times but it never loses its integrity - or heart.

Inevitably, the two teens have to meet each other, leading to one stunner of a conclusion. Don't miss this one!

Watched Mysterious Skin two days ago. Somehow I didn't have the compulsion to write anything about it, like I usually would when I have watched a (good or bad) film. It was because I was reeling from the disturbing effects the film had on me even after two days.

"The summer I was eight years old, five hours disappeared from my life"? so runs the catchy opening to the adapted film. The boy grows up believeing that he was abducted by strange aliens the five hours he was lost. The other grows up to be a gay hustler until he has a tragic and violent encounter. The material wasn't groundbreaking; it talks about paedophilic gay child abuse and the effects it had on the two boys involved in it long after it was over. However, it was the realism portrayed by the leads Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Third Rock From The Sun) and Brady Corbet that really shook me inside. It also revealed the stereotypical American gay society in the 80's and early 90's. The two little known actors and the supporting cast of Jeff Licon and Michelle Trachtenberg who play Levitt's best friends also lent great depth to the movie.

I really loved the scene where the snow fell and God was heard. Watch it for yourself, but it's not for the faint-hearted. (A)

This was one of the best films of 2005. All of the actors are outstanding, but Joseph Gordon Levitt really carries the film in a breakout performance both haunting, sexy and tender in his realism.
This is independent American film at its best- very absorbing, it lingers in your mind for days even months afterwards.

Having read Scott Heim's novel Mysterious Skin several years ago, I was always intrigued by the story's initial premise and I wondered at the time whether a film of the novel could ever be made. I'm pleased to report that maverick director Gregg Araki has certainly outdone himself in bringing this haunting world of child sexual abuse world, homoerotic ecstasy, broken down lives, and possible redemption to life.

Araki has delivered his most challenging, disturbing and moving film to date; it's a startling and provocative piece of cinema that will no doubt go down as one of the years best, but will also be remembered for its stark and persuasive indictment of the horrors inflicted on children by sexual abuse.

This finely acted; marvelously constructed, and expertly paced movie is about the lives of two Kansas boys and the long aftermath of their separate seductions by a pedophile baseball coach (Bill Sage). The film follows Brian Lackey (Brady Corbet) and Neil McCormick (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) from age eight to eighteen.

During this time, Brian - who has somehow confused his seduction with dreams of abduction by UFO's - becomes a dreamy, reclusive, and repressed introvert. He spends his days writing about space aliens in his diary holed up in his suburban home with his kindly but smothering mother (Lisa Long).

Neil however, grows into a magnetic teen hustler with a cocky, what-the-hell attitude, recklessly navigating his way through a twilight zone of sex for pay. He cruises the local parks hooking up with older men - the first, a portly and mustached traveling snack-food salesman, who has the word Daddy hanging from his rear-view mirror - and his transactions with him, and most of the other men in the town, are reminders of his butch, masculine Coach and perhaps his efforts to take tardy revenge on him.

The boys are both linked by their involvement in the local Little League and the fact that both were seduced, at eight, by their amoral coach. Brian has blotted it from memory, but Neil is ensnared in a protracted affair that leads to a career in New York as a male whore.

While Brian is able to keep his rage contained somewhere in the depths of his memory, and even befriends Avalyn Friesen (Mary Lynn Rajskub) as a crippled self-avowed alien abductee, Neil is affectless, remote and casually self-destructive, but also charismatic and cool enough to keep Wendy (Michelle Trachtenberg) and another friend, Eric (Jeff Licon), on his side, along with his doting, self-indulgent mother (Elisabeth Shue).

From the beginning, we suspect a connection between the boys' experiences, and part of the film's narrative momentum comes from their rediscovery of each other after 10 years. Brian is determined to find out what really happened in his past, and what the explanations are for his unexplained nose bleeds. He embarks on a journey to try and find Neil as he is convinced that his young baseball colleague can unlock the secrets of his past. Neil meanwhile, learns some hard lessons about life while living in New York.

It's a complex and provocative story, but Araki tells it with daring, boldness, and a shimmering lucidity. Yes, this is a movie about pedophilia, but it is never exploitative or offensive. Yet evil and danger lurk in every corner for these boys and the director is steadily able to build up this nightmare quality, especially of Neil's first encounters.

The images stay hard and are stunningly bright even as Mysterious Skin turns darker and moves onto more dangerous ground. The boys Coach is an affable, breezy, and engaging monster with a hunky attractive all American boy exterior, with Araki presenting him as a conscienceless, and practiced predator.

The cast is uniformly brilliant, with each actor unsmilingly nailing their character's insecurities, hopes, and dreams. This film is a gorgeous, heartbreaking and utterly convincing work of art that conveys a shadowy and forbidden world with both compassion and terror. Its characters stay with you, and by concentrating on the lives of two very different young men; it seems to effortlessly illuminate a period and a milieu.

But Mysterious Skin is also about the Midwest, about friendship, about the connections and disconnections between love and sex, about how the accidents of childhood can reverberate throughout one's life, and all of it is handled with a precision, effortlessness, articulacy, and a rare generosity of spirit. Mike Leonard October 05.

"Mysterious Skin" concerns two young men in 1991. One (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a gay hustler who seems headed toward self-destructive oblivion; the other (Brady Corbet) is a repressed community college student convinced that he's been abducted repeatedly by aliens. Told largely in flashback, the story relays how these two characters were profoundly affected by their childhoods.

The acting is uniformly good. Casting Gordon-Levitt in this role could have been gimmicky, much like Jonathon Taylor Thomas' role in the inferior "Speedway Junky." However, Gordon-Levitt pulls off the role spectacularly, with a performance full of subtlety and shading. Even though his character is off-putting and seemingly amoral, he manages to be likeable. That the audience can sympathize with and even understand this character is a testament to Gordon-Levitt's work, as well as the terrific screenplay, adapted by the novel by Scott Heim. Greg Araki's direction is also superb. Many of the flashback scenes in particular required tremendous sensitivity to protect the child actors, which Araki manages with some inventive filming. I haven't seen any of Araki's previous films, but I look forward to doing so.

The movie is very good until the final scene, which is so profoundly affecting that it elevates a solid movie to an outstanding one. The denouement is brilliant and haunting without resorting to cheap melodrama or fake catharsis - you don't get the feeling that "all is well." Again, credit has to go to Araki and the stars. Overall, this film is a superb examination of how the past can dictate our futures. Most highly recommended.

Extras include a somewhat awkward filmed reading by Barry Corbet and Joseph Gordon-Levitt of the first sections of the Heim novel as well as a highly informative commentary track with Araki, Corbet, and Gordon-Levitt.

Mysterious Skin- Sensational, controversial, intense... so many words can describe this movie by Gregg Araki based on the novel by Scott Heim. The first time I watched this film, I was blown away by the display of raw emotions of the two young lead actors- Joseph Gordon Levitt (who plays young hustler Neil McCormick) and Brady Corbet ( who plays Brian, the shy teen who believes he was abducted by Aliens). There is a special, albeit disturbing connection between the two young men and the film captures the journey towards their reunion and the ultimate discovery of that particular event that connects them.

Gordon-Levitt delivers one of the most unforgettable performances I have seen in recent years. As a young hustler, his dark and secret past, allowed him to mask his emotions, and live life as if what he does for a living is something ordinary and mundane. With his eyes showing off nothing, and staring blankly into space, he goes from one job to another just as if he's replacing parts in an automotive shop or sorting out letters in a mail room. There are certain sex scenes that are graphic and disturbing, but it captures the world of Neil- dark, violent, uncaring... It's the only way he can go on- the absence of emotion and with it, the inability to truly love the people who care for him. Corbet also delivered an amazing performance, as Brian he is the shy, trusting and unassuming young man who is so obsessed with recording his periodic episodes of forgetfulness, that he opens himself to anyone who cared enough to listen...

There is a certain fulfillment in watching this movie and see it towards its end, it opens up a world that is there, perhaps a world apart from your own, but it's there and you may need or may not need to protect yourself to discover it.