I can’t quite figure out why the latest trailer for Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin has been saddled with the restrictive red-band restriction. It’s certainly weird. But provocative? I must be missing something. Take a look:
JoBlo shares the clip, which begins with an extraterrestrial eye that calls to mind the clinical visuals of the late Stanley Kubrick. That should set a tone for the rest of Glazer’s bizarre sci-fi drama, which I was lucky enough to catch at the Toronto International Film Festival back in September 2013. Under the Skin stars Scarlett Johansson as a predatory alien, and while it primarily left the film-fest circuit known as the movie where the Avenger gets naked – a lot – Glazer’s film goes to great lengths to say a lot about how people are judged by their superficial features.
That message was conveyed better in the regular Skin trailer that hit the Web a few weeks back. Watch that here:
So yeah, this fur-coat-wearing seductress basically uses the looks of Johansson to lure average-looking dudes into "her" non-descript van where she transports them to a remote location and drains them of their essence. She’s feeding a larger power, but the details are vague. The meat of the movie has to do with how men overwhelmed by her superficial "power" recognize the danger of getting in this woman’s shady van, but they either can’t resist, or simply couldn’t live with their sorry lives if they passed up on the opportunity. In time, the alien begins to question its own motivations, and questions the draw of its own "skin."
The narrative knocked me flat, and Glazer – the Brit filmmaker who previously directed Sexy Beast and Birth -- isn’t afraid to embrace some unusual tactics to convey the emotional disconnects in his story. These clips play with uncomfortable sounds and visuals to keep us off balance. The whole movie maintains that tone-shift. You can see soon. A24 grabbed rights to Under the Skin recently, and is aiming for an April 4 release date. Go out of yoru way to see it. It will challenge you in the best ways possible.
