Review of Mysterious Skin (2005) by Nate B — 17 Nov 2009

Gregg Araki has created what has to be one of the most powerful looks into adolescence and more specifically child abuse and the effects on its? victims I?ve ever seen. The film is never exploitive, even though the subject matter is a sensitive one; it is handled with such meticulous and genuine respect and care that it transcends typical genre labels, becoming something altogether powerful to say the least bit.

Neil McCormick(Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Brian Lackey(Brady Corbet) are the boys in the focus of this film, who at a young age have completely different home lives, but are brought together by playing on the same little league team. Their little league coach, is first viewed by Neil?s mom as an outstanding guy and who produces a good guy image and is ultimately the one who brings the sexual abuse into the two boys lives, forever changing them. The effects are permanently engraved on each boy, however though, growing up both have different recollections of the incident, with Neil knowing full well what happened, as he shows the scars of the incident more prominently eventually becoming a male prostitute among other such things and leading an altogether reckless life. Brian on the other hand, remembers a completely different thing happening to him that night, as he develops a kind of amnesia to the incident, believing that he and the other boy were abducted by aliens that night. To the films credit the emotional outcomes in these boys? lives are fully realized by the harrowing performances of the two leads, especially Gordon-Levitt, who produces a tragically nuanced performance.

Araki?s care of the transfer from the book to film is phenomenal, and his best work to date, as he adapts the book with a gifted touch. For all accounts this could?ve been a cable special about the tumultuous lives sexually abused children lead, but it never goes there, instead it takes careful examination of those affected lives and intertwines an amazing coming of age story within it. After viewing this I have great respect for Gregg Araki as a director, as he has taken charge of a sensitive subject, and has made something so profound, that it transcends Hollywood and Oscar ceremonies; while worthy of that praise, delivering altogether a most poignant film, one which resonates in the mind long after it?s over.