Scarlett Johansson: "Under the Skin” is a Wandering Puzzler

"Under the Skin” is a wandering puzzler

 
By Mal Vincent 

The Virginian-Pilot

If you see Scarlett Johansson driving around in a white van don’t get in.

Particularly if you’re a guy.

Johansson will be decked out in a black wig and ruby-red lips – and, often, in nothing else. It is best, nonetheless, to watch her only from the safety of theater seats, even if in the ominous dark.

In the science-fiction, low-budget, outing called “Under The Skin,” she is apparently out to trap males to, first, get in the van, and, then, to go back to her surreal lair of death where she lures them into a vat of black ink where their innards, intestines, guts and all are sucked out. (We are spared that sight, but we get a few of their empty skins hanging out to dry.)

You have been warned.

“Under the Skin” is the second movie opening here this week that threatens men as primary targets. It joins “The Other Woman,” which stars Cameron Diaz and company portraying a wife and two ex-girlfriends who set out to give a philandering guy his comeuppance. It is a comedy.

“Under the Skin” is not a comedy.

After numerous ill-advised efforts to become the new Marilyn Monroe, Johansson is, indeed, sexy here – proving that less can be more. If she couldn’t make the grade in a vehicle like this, it would have been time to give up. She plays a literal man killer who picks up hitchhikers only after she has cooed and whispered to them to find out if they have any family or other connections that might cause a search for their missing innards.

The hunting ground here is Scotland – misty in a way that makes one of the world’s most beautiful cities, Edinburgh, seem threatening.

Johansson has had a checkered career, which suggests that she, upon occasion, can act but has little talent for finding good scripts. She’s given us nice performances – as a skilled child in “The Horse Whisperer” and a luminous role in “Girl With a Pearl Earring.” In between, she’s been in a lot of flops (“The Perfect Score,” “The Island,” “The Nanny Diaries” and “He’s Just Not That Into You.”)

Currently, she has found insurance via the “superhero” movies. She plays the so-called Black Widow in the Marvel Comics adaptations and could probably pay the rent forever with those grosses – as long as the franchise lasts. There is a realization, though, that even A-list actresses cannot live by Marvel Comics alone. Wisely, she alternates with freakish things like this just to, presumably, prove she can do it. 

“Under the Skin” doesn’t require much “acting,” or even much talking. It does require presence, though. Johansson is deadpan throughout, although she does show some pity when she picks up a deformed, lonely man. On the other hand, she’s so cold-hearted that she drags off two male bodies from a swimming scene and leaves a wailing toddler abandoned. In any case, she bears watching; and, in spite of the slow pacing, it is fun to watch her.

Director Jonathan Glazer has done a rare thing – he has created a special effects movie that has no special effects, and no budget. The lighting is eerie. The mood is ominous. He has a particular knack for using long shots with a still camera. It’s your job to find the moving actors in the still landscape. There is ample nudity but Miss Scarlett has seen to it that there is no female competition. The ratio is 3-to-1 in favor of male nudity – full frontal. (The movie got an R rating. What would it take to get an NC-17?).

The science-fiction genre, itself, gives away something about the plot, but don’t blame that on me. The film is a puzzler that forgoes linear narrative in favor of random wandering.

Still, there is a relentless quality about it that keeps you going. It’s the kind of “art” film that reminds one of Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion.”

“Under the Skin” has a wandering, surreal kind of quality that old-time art films once had. For “speciality” audiences only, it is unpleasantly hypnotic.