Now Playing: Under the Skin

I went to see this last week, and plan to see it again this evening. Stark, beautiful, eerie. Little to no dialogue; it is a director’s forte, and Glazer’s direction reminds a bit of Nicholas Winding Refn’s “Drive” or “Valhalla Rising”; indeed, in the latter, the lead character never speaks! But unlike them, there is no excitement here, in the sense of fast-paced action, and little that is overtly sexy without also being simultaneously unsettling. I wonder that Glazer may have modeled Johansson’s appearance a bit on Daryl Hannah’s character “Pris,” from Ridley Scott’s epic “Blade Runner” of 1982. Similar dress and the same waifish sexuality, but not the nervous chattiness: Johansson’s character speaks only to identify her target; e.g., “Are you from around here?” or “Do you have family?”, or to seduce, in few words; e.g., “I like your hands,” or, “Do you think I’m pretty?” Later her words drop off altogether and Johansson’s nonverbal acting and the director’s cuts of the Scottish landscape – beautiful, yet cold, rainy, and mist-obscured – must carry the viewer along to speculate what is going on; what she is thinking, and who really is “under the skin.” I thought the soundtrack could have been a bit stronger in this regard, but thinking again of “Blade Runner,” Mica Levi is clearly not Vangelis. It’s a very small criticism, though; this is the best movie I have seen this year, and for quite some time.

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