Film Review: Under The Skin
Director: Jonathan Glazer
Screenplay: Walter Campbell
Starring: Scarlett Johanssen, Paul Brannigan, Krystof Hádek, Scott Dymond Rating: 15
Release date: 14th March 2014 (UK)
Run Time: 108 minutes
A very, very loose adaptation, that’s what it is. It makes you wonder what Jonathan Glazer has been doing for almost ten years, poring over the adaptation of Michael Faber’s 2000 sci-fi novel, seemingly looking for a way to make a film that neglects much of the story, logic, characters, setting, politics and social conscience that made the book so compelling. “I don’t think i’m the right man to adapt a book,” says Glazer in a newspaper interview that sounds like an attempt at irony, but comes across more like contrived modesty. On this showing, at least, he is correct.
What we are given is a film heavily reliant on atmosphere and feeling, with much of that owing to Mica Levi’s powerful, abstract soundtrack. Kubrikian is a word you’ll hear and in some respects, maybe that is justified. The film’s stylishly artistic opening sets a visual and aural tone which is present throughout, with many intense and breathtaking moments. However, the sparse, vaccuous sound and landscapes, with glacial, uneventful scenes designed to allow the audience to constantly reflect, ultimately leaves you yearning for logic and meaning, in a meaningless, superficial world.
Why is Scarlet Johansson’s enigmatic lead prowling the busy streets of Glasgow, luring its scrawniest, condemned manmeat into a psychedelic lair, where they are destined to meet a brutal end? We never find out. Only at the end of the movie do we get a glimpse of whom she actually is, but not before we’ve had a good gawp at the naked Johanssen, voyeuristically stroking and examining herself without much explanation, or seductively stripping off during David Lynch-esque sequences of entrapment. The nudity is gratuitous, as the film ignores the whole reason of the character’s deep physical self-analysis contained in the book, substituting it instead for a vague, meandering, unexplained subtext. The character has no voice of her own. The one time she does decide to express herself, she attempts to have sex, which for an alien she does capably before realising she does not possess a vagina.
The logic involved in such a character, whose motive is to seduce and trap men without trace, is also lost in this adaptation. Johanssen’s character frequents the busiest thoroughfares of the Scottish Central belt, hunting for prey in a white van. She takes the time to question each prospective captive, ensuring that no one will be concerned about their disappearance, at least for a while. She seems unconcerned however, with the multitude of cars, passersby, CCTV and the like that would make it unlikely that her prowling of main streets and council estates would go unnoticed, which of course puts such a complex, covert intergalactic venture in jeopardy.
Of course, the book doesn’t always need to be scrutinized, by writer, producer or viewer, but when only bare elements of a story make it to the final cut, what we are left with is an unreasoned husk of a narrative, based on a book with grounding and substance, but preferring instead to rely on inconsequential, off the cuff improvisation, (sorry…realism) and a stark, deformed premise. However, Johanssen’s on board and she doesn’t mind getting her kit off, which should sell a few seats once word gets around. For two separate processes, that of Glazer and his producers, and that of Isserley’s male superiors in the book, the correlation of men using women to lure other men into a darkened space, should not be ignored.
That last comment may seem cynical, with the implication that Johanssen has been exploited somewhat, but the thought is unavoidable. Issues such as body consciousness, inherent male dominance, animal cruelty and responsible meat sourcing are of great importance to many, especially in the UK. Michael Faber thought so too, but instead of seizing the opportunity to present Faber’s exploration of issues in our own lives, when you peel it back, Glazer’s film of the same name shows little more than that tired premise of the attractive, yet remorseless predator, ala Splice or Species, albeit heavily whitewashed with a coat of ambiguity. When what we need is an honest glass of water, some men have once again conspired to toss us some disjointed, irresponsibly sourced homemade fizz.
