UNDER THE SKIN (Carine Adler, 1998) R

Reviewed: May 8, 2002 - May 10, 2002 [then heavily revised months later]

[Insert my painfully inadequate, muti-thousand word Samantha Morton is a Goddess rant here, which I've now cut due to said inadequacy. Unfortunately writing about Morton was my only impetus for reviewing this film in the first place, thus all we are left with is the scant nothing which follows.]

Carine Adler's Under the Skin is good, if nothing more, a very promising writing/directing debut that follows astonishing Samantha Morton as Iris, a can-be-tough but fragile young woman wrestling with sex and identity. She wears a wig her mother wore when in the throes of cancer. She dolls herself up, hiding behind the makeup. She fucks strangers. She gets into fights with her sister (who was allegedly favored by the dead mother). She gets cheated on. Under the Skin is ambitious in tackling such extraordinarily difficult subject matter, it's well shot (although I wasn't the biggest fan of its use of slow motion), it features some beautiful little grace notes (particularly in the very strong last few scenes, one of which has Morton just breaking my fucking heart with a single shattering line), it feels honest/raw/sincere not only due to the performances but also because it's shot in the same verite style I've come to expect from British cinema (save the occasional said slow motion), but, alas, it also stutters, growing somewhat repetitive in its frequent uncertainty where to go next.

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