'Skincare' needs to reimagine its product
IFC
Don’t worry if you have no interest in makeup or skin treatments or even either of those things as a metaphor; neither does “Skincare,” an extremely average thriller in which nothing is complicated and nothing much is concealed.
Still deserving better leading roles (no one saw her great work in “People Like Us”) Elizabeth Banks stars as Hope, a longtime skin consultant to the stars who’s finally about to launch her own line of products made in Italy. Is there any sense of what makes her items different or better than the competition? Or how she developed the products or found her Italian partners or what it takes to succeed in this field long-term or why she’s so interested in this type of work in the first place? Zero. Instead, there’s a familiar descent into paranoia and very obvious mystery as Hope loses nearly all hope — oy — when someone starts sabotaging her business with fraudulent emails and explicit postings. Hope is sure it must be her new rival across the street, Angel (Luis Gerardo Mendez), while also working to finesse a TV host (Nathan Fillion) and determine to what extent she wants to collaborate with an aspiring life coach (Lewis Pullman) she doesn’t remember meeting years earlier.
The strongest moments in “Skincare” resemble “Woman of the Hour” as Hope receives romantic and/or sexual interest from men she only wants as professional acquaintances and walks a difficult line of maintaining congeniality without compromising her choices. Director/co-writer Austin Peters generates more tension through style than narrative, including some excellently abrasive needle drops (love the use of Queens of the Stone Age’s “You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire”) and a blaring sound design that seems to be closing in on a character struggling to keep control over a business that’s barely even gotten started.
But so much is underwritten here, minimizing the suspense because our brains don’t have enough to sort through and just land on what should be abundantly clear to most viewers. Hope comes off as innocent and naive rather than complex, conflicted, or even a little sinister. Plus, where "The Neon Demon” approached a world we already assumed was cutthroat and took it to disturbing, memorable places, “Skincare” pretends that it has something to say simply by suggesting that some people in L.A. will stop at nothing to get ahead. Wait, whaaaaaat??!!
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