Mysterious Skin

Mysterious Skin (Director: Gregg Araki, USA, 2004): Two boys share a dark secret until their paths cross again ten years later. If it sounds a bit melo­dra­matic, well, it might be, except that the two boys smother their pain in dif­ferent ways. Neil (Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a breakout per­form­ance) remem­bers everything about the summer when he was eight with a sort of romantic nos­talgia. He loved the atten­tion his base­ball coach lav­ished on him, even all the spe­cial games they played when they were alone. He has grown into a sullen gay hustler who doesn’t let anyone get close to him emo­tion­ally. Brian (Brady Corbet) doesn’t remember the night where he “lost five hours,” and suf­fers night­mares, black­outs and nosebleeds for years. Over time, he becomes con­vinced that he was abducted by aliens. Since we know Neil’s story already, we know the truth is much more pro­saic. This is a film that abso­lutely requires stellar per­form­ances from these two actors and they deliver.

Entwining Neil’s vivid remem­brances with Brian’s efforts to remember any shred of detail gives the film an inter­esting struc­ture, and the fact that the two boys don’t meet again until the very end of the film gives the ending a real emo­tional punch. Neil’s strange and sad nos­talgia at the begin­ning about the events that happened to them fails by the end to hide the real damage that both boys have suffered. The ending does leave us with a kernel of hope, although there is a bit of voi­ceover that seems to come out of nowhere. The fact that the film is based on a novel by Scott Heim prob­ably has some­thing to do with the com­plic­ated multiple-flashback struc­ture, and I think the screenplay’s attempt to sim­plify it shows a few seams in places.

Overall, though, the lead per­form­ances carry us over any bumps and make this an exper­i­ence both dis­turbing and moving.

P.S. The “present-day” in the film is 1991, and so the soundtrack fea­tures a lot of great bands from the “Shoegaze” era: Slowdive, Curve, Ride, and the Cocteau Twins.

(8/10)

Tagged as: adolescence, children, DVD, homosexuality