Scarlett Johansson as a sexy alien may suggest a yawnsome rip-off of Species.
However, this mysterious masterpiece seduces you into a very different twilight zone of unforgettable sci-fi strangeness. From the first cosmic sequence, you’re brilliantly disoriented – what are we seeing? What scale is it on? Which way up are we? It’s a bit 2001: A Space Odyssey.
You may – I didn’t – clock that in this abstract opening we’re witnessing the wordless creation of an eye. It belongs to ‘Laura’ (a magnetic Johansson), a voluptuous twentysomething with a careful Bridget Jones accent who prowls the streets of Glasgow in a van, picking up unsuspecting men (actually real-life strangers, not actors) with lines such as: ‘Is this the way to the Post Office?’ (Hey, if you look like Johansson, that works.)
The men think they’re in for a good time but once they undress back at her house, they find mating is not on the cards…
Loosely based on Michel Faber’s novel, this is a mesmeric – or mind-numbingly slow, some may huff – watch that focuses on the mundanity of British everyday life anew through an exotic, often chilling, alien stare.
As inklings of humanity kindle within Johansson’s character, Under The Skin loses some of its extraordinary enigmatic power by following a recognisable ‘journey’ path. However, it’s a film that stays wriggling around in your mind.
Intoxicatingly stylish – as you’d expect from a movie by Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast, Birth), the Brit once credited with creating the Best Ad Ever Made (the 1999 Guinness one with horses leaping over surfers) – it’s given an extra dislocating dimension by Mica Levi’s nerve-needling soundscape. Way too weird to win Oscars – and all the more marvellous for that.
