Girls Gone Wild

UNDER THE SKIN (C) - I'm not a sci-fi aficionado by any means, so take me with a grain of salt, but this spooky mood piece -- starring Scarlett Johansson as an alien in Scotland luring men to their deaths -- is about as slow and uneventful as they come.

There is very little dialogue, and what we do get is often mumbled by Johansson or rendered indecipherable by Scottish brogues. She is assisted (monitored?) by a mystery man who speeds around on a motorcycle.

I think I know what director Jonathan Glazer ("Sexy Beast," "Birth") is going for -- Johansson's character (no names are used) is curious about what it feels like to be human. It also struck me as being a sharp metaphor for a young woman's struggle with coming of age sexually, and the power and pitfalls surrounding that journey.

The set-up is a snore until our gal picks up a man with a deformed face, like that of the elephant man. She seems truly moved by his inexperience with human contact and is inspired to spare him. Does she identify with him?

This is all rendered in darkness and gloom. Johannson (or her body double) is naked a lot and pouty at times. Glazer uses artful techniques, using backlighting and mirrors. The final sequence is one of the most breathtaking final shots I've ever seen. So, if you wait for video so that you can fast-forward through this one, make sure to savor that wonder.

NOTE: We considered adding this one to the Patsies* -- inscrutable films that make you say to yourself, "That means nothing to me."


WHITE REINDEER (B+) - Husky-voiced Anna Margaret Hollyman steps up to a leading role as a woman who goes on a bender in the days leading up to Christmas after her husband is brutally murdered and she begins finding out some of his secrets.

Suzanne is a real estate agent whose perkiness takes a severe hit when tragedy strikes. Upon learning that her boyfriend was into black women -- in one of several awkward plot devices, one of the dead man's buddies fesses up about his affair with a stripper -- Suzanne seeks out the strip club. Soon she is doing lines of coke and shots at dance clubs with the wild women. She also plunges into retail therapy -- buying clothes and then a yard- and houseful of Christmas decorations.

Then the mysterious couple she sold a house to invites her to their X-rated housewarming, where Suzanne engages coolly in group sex. The nudity and sexual situations are not for the shy; the scene stands out, too, because it's narratively shaky.

Suzanne and stripper Fantasia grow close, and as the worst Christmas ever approaches, Suzanne finds comfort in female bonding while wondering why the man she married is such a mystery to her. Hollyman carries this whole thing well, even if the pacing jerks and jolts a bit and the dark humor stings. There's an element of absurdity to the whole proceedings (I blame C-list writer/director Zach Clark for sloppy work) but an underlying believability (thanks mainly to Hollyman) keeps it from flying off into farce.


* - From Patsy in "Absolutely Fabulous," having this exchange after arriving home post-dawn from a night of carousing:
Patsy: What time is it? 
Eddy: 7:30 [a.m.] 
Patsy: What? in the... 7:30, you say? That means nothing to me. 
Eddy: Go back to bed, darling.