60 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the very best films of 2005., April 11, 2006
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.
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25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A significant achievement, August 29, 2005
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.
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35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Innocence Lost., May 29, 2006
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.
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