Every few years, a film shows up that critics fall in love with not because it’s good, but because it dares to be different — different in that cold, joyless, IKEA showroom kind of way. Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin is one of those movies. It’s the cinematic equivalent of being seduced by an alien and then shoved naked into a vat of black Jell-O while Thom Yorke mutters in the distance. Allegorical, surreal, hypnotic — and absolutely insufferable.
This movie stars Scarlett Johansson as a literal man-eater — an alien in a black wig and a stolen van, cruising the streets of Scotland for lonely men to lure into a Kafkaesque meat locker. She seduces them with silence, undresses them with the allure of a bored supermodel on Ambien, and leads them into a void where they slowly sink like bad ideas into the abyss. It’s like To Catch a Predator directed by a philosophy major who just discovered nihilism.
The plot — if you can call it that — unfolds with the speed of refrigerated molasses. Glazer seems allergic to narrative propulsion. Scenes drag on like he’s getting paid by the second. Johansson drives. She stares. She walks. She blinks. Occasionally she picks up a guy, leads him into her alien swamp-house, and absorbs him into a symbolic oil slick. Repeat. This is not storytelling. This is performance art for the profoundly patient.
And yes, Scarlett Johansson is naked for parts of it, which is probably why half the audience wandered into the theater. But the nudity is clinical, like a biology textbook photo shoot. She strips like a mannequin slowly rebooting, and the guys — bless their doomed little hearts — disrobe with the eagerness of frat pledges at a cult orgy. Then they melt. Literally. Into a black pool of existential regret. It’s not sexy. It’s not scary. It’s not even mysterious. It’s just… there. A slow dissolve into metaphorical soup.
Visually, Under the Skin is kind of stunning, if your idea of stunning is a nightmarish IKEA catalog soaked in motor oil. Every frame is carefully composed, sterile and suffocating, like being trapped in a very artistic panic attack. Glazer’s camera floats like a ghost on lithium. You could frame half this movie and hang it in a gallery called “Moody Female Gaze No. 7,” and people would pretend to get it just to look smart.
Sound design? Oh, it’s there. It’s a haunting blend of silence, distortion, and Mica Levi’s score — a twitchy string arrangement that sounds like a dying mosquito orchestra having a mental breakdown in a haunted violin shop. It’s “unsettling,” which is film critic shorthand for “made me want to pull out my own teeth just to feel something.”
The acting — if we can call it that — is mostly Johansson driving around and looking blank. She’s good at that. There’s an odd detachment in her performance, which is perfect, because detachment is the entire damn movie. She’s less a character than a vessel. A void. A hot, alien-shaped question mark. She barely speaks, and when she does, it’s with the emotion of a cashier announcing a cleanup in aisle three.
Most of the men she picks up were real Scottish dudes filmed guerrilla-style, apparently unaware they were in a movie until later. Which is about as ethical as tripping someone into a philosophy lecture and charging them admission afterward. Sure, the rawness adds to the “realism,” but it also feels like watching one of those prank YouTube videos that ends in a lawsuit.
And yes, I know — it’s all a metaphor. She’s discovering her humanity, or the illusion of it. She’s a commentary on the objectification of women. She’s an alien, yes, but also a mirror to male desire, vulnerability, and something-something post-feminist nightmare. Congratulations. You’ve decoded the thesis. Now ask yourself: Did you enjoy the experience, or are you just proud of yourself for enduring it?
Let’s be honest: Under the Skin is the kind of movie that makes you feel like you’re failing an invisible test. Like you should be “getting it” more. Maybe if you were smarter. Maybe if you had fewer dopamine receptors. But in truth, it’s not that you’re dumb. It’s that the film is emotionally constipated, and it mistakes that for depth. Like a grad student who wrote a 300-page dissertation on sadness and forgot to include a plot.
There’s a subplot with a disfigured man that’s supposed to be poignant. Instead, it’s uncomfortable. Not in the “art is meant to provoke” kind of way — more like “why is this happening and why am I still watching” kind of way. The alien spares him, which is meant to be her turning point. Her first act of mercy. Her brush with humanity. Too bad it feels like a deleted scene from a perfume ad directed by Lars von Trier.
By the final act, when she’s stumbling through the woods like an existentially confused deer, trying to understand what it means to be prey instead of predator, you’re not weeping for her. You’re weeping for the two hours of your life you’ll never get back. When she finally meets her end — spoiler: she gets torched by a forest rapist — it’s less catharsis, more relief. Like, “Ah, the credits. Salvation at last.”
Final Thoughts:
Under the Skin is a movie that wants to haunt you, challenge you, and whisper profound truths into your ear while staring at you through an artsy fog machine. But what it really does is test your patience, beat you over the head with metaphor, and then leave you cold, wet, and vaguely annoyed. It’s a film for people who say things like “I don’t care about plot, I care about atmosphere” while sipping wine and pretending not to miss explosions.
If you enjoy watching paint dry while pondering the mortality of the soul, this one’s for you. But if you’re looking for a compelling story, relatable characters, or even a pulse, then Under the Skin is exactly where it belongs — under the radar, underwhelming, and under no obligation to entertain.
