SKIN: Sells Itself Short

Who’s ready to talk about white supremacy? Hopefully everyone, because it’s on the rise and has become a prominent talking point in American politics. Not that any major political figure has outright come out as a white supremacist, but language that appeals to those groups has been used, making them feel more willing to openly march on the streets.

Their reassertion into mainstream culture has shocked some, but they’ve always lingered on the fringes, never really going away. Hard-line groups survive in squirreled away pockets of America, and what to do with them is the question at the center of Skin.

The movie follows one such group, a rag-tag bunch of castoffs held together by the iron rule of Fred (Bill Camp) and the wily seduction of Shareen (Vera Farmiga). Bryon (Jamie Bell) has been caught up in the life since boyhood, but a new love and pressure from activists cause his belief to slip. But is it possible for him to get out, or even more, to actually change?

Skin is hesitant to answer this despite it being its reason for existing. Writer/director Guy Nattiv doesn’t really grapple with his central character, as if fear of getting under the skin of someone capable of such monstrosities would be too uncomfortable (or perhaps too dangerous). That leaves the film feeling adrift, even as its stellar performers very nearly give it a mooring.

Finding Structure Without Redemption

There’s a mantra you encounter if you read interviews with Bell about this film: it’s not a redemption story. While Byron is based on a real man who left a skinhead group and has endured agonizing operations to remove the hateful tattoos that covered his body (hence the title), these acts are still mere surface-level changes to bone-deep problems, and pitching them as the endpoint of his reformation would simplify the story to the point of irrelevance.

The real work of changing his worldview, his interpersonal relations, and all the other toxic lessons that were drilled into him by his upbringing is the meat of Byron’s tale, and while that is a much more complicated and dark journey, it would’ve made the film a striking tale about humanity’s capability for evil and for change.

However, Skin never figures out how to navigate this journey, which requires a more subtle arc than a traditional redemption story. That story requires intricately written characters, an honest look at what makes hate groups seductive, and the difficulty of changing core elements of your identity.

There are hints that it was trying for these things, particularly with the recruiting of a homeless teen into the group. Through the boy you’re supposed to see how the indoctrination happens, how Fred and Shareen isolate and manipulate vulnerable youth, and by proxy see what formed Byron. But the boy is used too infrequently, his arc coming in spurts instead of being a clean regression, and because of that his narrative function fails to land. He is too clearly a device, as are many of the characters and subplots in Skin, and this sinks its attempt to be anything more complex than a man starting towards redemption.

Performances Nearly Save The Day

Even with its wonky plot, Skin is still an engaging movie that very nearly gives you the insight it promises. This is mostly due to the cast picking up the slack, with Bell and Danielle Macdonald creating a tentative but loving connection and Vera Farmiga bringing some manipulative menace.

Bell obviously is carrying the film, and there are layers to his performance that go beyond the script. I often complain that body language is sorely underutilized by actors today, and here Bell shows how much changing your posture can communicate. If you’ve seen him in other projects, you probably know that playing a brutal bully isn’t his usual thing, but he sells it by rolling back his shoulders, standing tall, and taking the stance of someone trained to not give an inch. Impressive, for sure, but it’s how he softens over the film that is truly informative. You can track his character’s distance from the group in how he holds himself, can see when he slides or is making progress, and this does more to show the deep-rooted effect the life has had on him than anything else in the film.

The relationship he builds with Macdonald is just as intricate, and the fact that they have genuine chemistry does much to give this film some semblance of structure. They are easy to root for, but she is no naive hanger-on, either. She’s aware of the lifestyle and is struggling to break from it herself, and their romance is one of mutual support with a clear breaking point. You can feel Macdonald refusing to fully invest, that she’s willing to drop him if he slides too far. This threat does much to push Byron away from the group, and it becomes the only motivation in the film that feels natural.

Farmiga provides the best opposing force, standing out from the rest of the skinhead group with her more subtle approach. She doesn’t lead with the brutality of Camp and the other men, but she’s keeping a tight leash on these broken people with a combination of guilt and gaslighting, constantly doing the thing you least expect to keep the other characters and the audience off guard. She’s electric here, and honestly, I’d almost rather watch a movie about her character.

Conclusion: Skin

Skin brings a confronting story to the big screen but fails to dig into its intricacies. There’s a palpable hesitation throughout, as if Nattiv was unsure how willing audiences would be to get close to the bigots it follows. In doing so the film is left in a state of unreality, with characters feeling like pawns in a narrative that can’t figure out where to take them. The result is a listless film, one that manages a few gripping moments thanks to its cast but can’t string them together into something meaningful.

What did you think of the film? Let us know in the comments!

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