Under the Skin

Under the Skin written and directed by Jonathan Glazer, starring Scarlett Johansson and that's pretty much the only "star" in this movie.

This is one pretentious, bore of a movie.  And is basically an art house version of the movie Species.  

It will only be remember in movie history as the one film where Scarlett Johansson is naked for a few scenes in the movie.  Other than that this is a art film will little dialogue, little story line, and hardly any information about anything that is going on.  Whatever is happening in the story much be inferred from the various images, scenes, or sparse dialogue that does take place.  Interpretation is only key to this movie, nothing is concrete and communication is non-existent.  

And let me tell you those scenes can go on for ever with nothing happening.  Someone starring into a mirror for about a minute - check.  Someone driving around for what feels like hours and hours and since we will be arty so lets show the viewer the main character driving around for hours and hours - check, check, check, and check.  Showing  a person dragging a body across a rocky beach for yards and yards and yards - another check, check, check - because for the first few yards I wasn't quite sure what the character was doing, you know dragging the person across the rocky beach.  Hardly ever move the camera, let's just sit the camera down and never move it because you know it's the arty thing to do - check.  Let people just stare at each other with for minutes or have a character stare out into nothing for minutes upon minutes - check.  Watch paint dry, watch grass grow, watch a flower bloom - all in real time of course - I'm just kidding this doesn't happen in this movie but there are times it sure feels like it does.

This movie is the wet dream of the Hollywood it writer Damon Lindelof - the writer of such classic pieces of writing where questions pour down like rain but never give any answers - Lost and Promethus being his two big writing gigs where explanations and an actually story arc are the Lost Arc to him.  This movie seemed catered especially for him.

I will give this movie one thing, the director did know how to create some very interesting and lasting images it was just to bad I never cared once for anything going on in the movie.  So the images fell away like words in the words.  That is a shame because those images deserved to have a stable story line attached to them to actually give them a life, instead what they were force fed into a world of art house imagery where nothing is ever explained, everything is implied, and boredom is the pallet of choice.

 I HATE ART HOUSE FILMS!