Mysterious Skin (Original Theatrical Director's Cut)
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DVD Cover Information Actor: Brady Corbet, Chase Ellison, Elisabeth Shue, George Webster, Joseph Gordon-Levitt Director: Gregg Araki Cinematographer: Steve Gainer Editor: Gregg Araki Writer: Gregg Araki Producer: Wouter Barendrecht Producer: Michael J. Werner Writer: Scott Heim DVD: Region Code 1 Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled) Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen Picture Format: 1.85:1 Running Time: 99 minutes DVD Release Date: 2005-10-25 Audience Rating: NC-17 Studio: Strand Releasing |
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Movie Reviews of Mysterious Skin (Original Theatrical Director's Cut)
Movie Review: The Darker Side of Their Wonder Years.
Summary: 5 Stars
As I was watching this totally compelling, sexually disturbing, and emotionally powerful "coming of age" movie, some of the scenes in this film reminded me of movies like Boys Don't Cry, Monster, Palindromes, and even Elisabeth Shue's Leaving Las Vegas, because there are numerous "heavy duty"/violent/disturbing sexual activities in this film. This film is probably going to appreciated by more indie-film buffs and select gays, but easily overwhelming for the more conservative mainstream crowds. Ultimately, this movie generated the year's best performance by a young actor(Joseph Gordon-Levitt). I was very moved by his performance, especially the last half an hour of the film.
The story is about the lives of two boys throughout the '80s starting at the age of 8 when something terrible and traumatizing happened to them in one summer, and they both embarked on two very different paths in life until they reunite on Christmas of '91 when they they have grown up to be 18 and 19 years old. Neil(Joseph Gordon-Levitt) was raised by her single mother(played by the amazingly talented but underused Elisabeth Shue). She works as a cashier at the local supermarket, and she goes out with many different men. She's kind of close to her son, but never saw beneath the surface of things in her son's life. She allows her son to spend after school hours with his baseball coach(portrayed brilliantly by Bill Sage), who gradually seduced him to have sex with him, and soon it became a regular thing since Neil was happy to receive all the emotional and physical love of a father figure. After that one summer, Coach just vanished out of little Neil's life.
Meanwhile, there is an interwining story about Brian(Brady Corbet), who was a traumatized kid by some events that caused him to believe that he had been abducted by aliens twice, and that was the reason for his bleeding nose afterwards. He would spend the next decade trying to figure out what really happened. He came across a girl named Avalyn(Mary Lynn Rajskub) who appeared on TV as a former UFO abductee, and they became friends as they both try to search for the truth out there.
By the time Neil was 15, he was fully aware that he was gay, and pretty much open to his two best friends Wendy(Michelle Trachtenberg) and Eric(Jeffrey Licon). He got picked up as a street hustler for the first time by an obese middle aged man who paid him $50, and gave him very agressive oral service that left his genital bruised. Dispite his friends' discouragement, he continued to turn tricks in his town(Kansas City), and when he was 18, he headed out to New York City. He reunited with Wendy who had moved there earlier, and he finds his customers in the local gay bars. He would encounter with all kinds of middle aged men range from hunks to AIDS carrier, and violent rapist/psychopath lumberjack. He was so terrified that he had turned a trick with someone who was obviously not clean, and when he confessed to Wendy, she wanted to help him by finding a normal job for him.
The scene when Neil was servicing the man with scars all over his body was so disturbing, and he was so scared as he was looking at the "Girl With A Pearl Earring" painting on the wall in the bedroom. Then there is the more gripping and unbearable rape scene when Neil was force to take cocaine along with the lumberjack guy before getting brutally raped in the bathtub. He was so powerful during and after that scene when he breaks down while bleeding all over his head. That's when he came full circle, and it was Christmas time, and he got together with Brian for the first time in 10 years.....
I feel that they should have written a better or more challenging role for Elisabeth Shue, and that her not knowing any of the truth just baffled me. She only had about 15 minutes of screentime. Brady Corbet's role is less intense and captivating compared to Joseph Gordon-Levitt's, but his big moment came in the end. The little boy who played the 8 year old Neil was also very good, considered that he had to endure a difficult sex scene with Coach. Both Mary Lynn Rajskub and Jeffrey Licon delivered good supporting performances.