Mysterious Skin (2004)

Mysterious Skin (2004) tells the parallel stories of Neil and Brian who share a secret from their past. The cinematography and soundtrack alone make this film worth seeing, as director, Gregg Araki, [Totally F***ed Up (1993) & The Living End (1992)] take some of Hollywood’s young TV actors and shows off how talented these kids really are.

Notably it features Joseph Gordon-Levitt (a.k.a. Tommy from Third Rock from the Sun) as Neil, the hard hearted gay hustler and Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as his best friend. Be warned that the subject matter of this film is not for everyone as it explores pedophilia and prostitution. Yet despite the serious story, it manages to fall into that category of films that entertain while making you think.

If Mysterious Skin (2004) reminds you a little of Home at the End of the World (2004), the Michael Mayer film based on the Pulitzer prize winning book by Michael Cunningham, starring Colin Farrell, you are not alone. There are a few striking similarities in the way these films were shot that gives them a similar tone. Both begin is a small town. Both stories move through time. Both transfer from small town to the big city of New York and both have that maternal figure that the main characters turn to (In Home at the End of the World it was Sissy Spacek and in Mysterious Skin its Elizabeth Shue). The lighting and pacing are similar but most strikingly it is the way in which the directors have used sound subtly and effectively to swing the mood of the film that stand out.

Yet Mysterious Skin (2004) is a much darker film as it explores the pedophilic acts of a small town Kansas Little League base ball coach on two of his victims. While Neil (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) remembers his affair with coach at age eight, fondly, reminiscing between turning tricks as a rent boy; Brian (Brady Corbet) is haunted by the amnesia of his encounters with the coach. He remains an innocent and becomes obsessed with the idea that he was abducted by aliens. Their lives remain parallel for most of the film and it is the way in which this contrast is played out which distinguishes it from an ordinary way of story telling.

It is a serious film which has not excluded humor and well worth watching on a big screen for its cinematography. All the actors must be commended for outstanding performances as both Gordon-Levitt and Trachtenberg show promise of things to come.

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