Under The Skin

Scarlett Johansson is feeling a bit alien in Glasgow, which is understandable. We all do. Glasgow, although a place I like, is a bit like that. The thing is in this film by Jonathan Glazer from a novel by Michel Faber she really is an alien.

Johansson (as Laura the alien) roams the streets of the strange, unfamiliar world that is Glasgow in a white van. Occasionally she stops and asks men who are walking home alone (oh the irony) for directions, before offering to give them a lift. Once in the van she engages them in conversation and flirts with them before luring them back to her run down abode where, entranced by Johansson, they strip off their clothes while following her disrobing figure.

Yet they never reach their goal, her, as they disappear beneath her bedroom floor, where they remain trapped until they get their innards sucked out. Which are then presumably sent back to her home planet. Our alien is completely remorseless about her task and shows no empathy for her victims, who think it is their lucky day and they're going to get to shag Scarlett Johansson.

Later, out on the Scottish coast whilst in the process of seducing a surfer, she observes a dog adrift in the sea, a woman getting in trouble trying to rescue it, her husband getting in trouble trying to rescue her and the surfer getting in trouble trying to save anyone he can.

She attempts to save her target, the surfer, yet leaves the others and also ignores their abandoned young child who is left screaming on the beach, left to swallowed by the incoming tide. Our alien has no understanding of the situation.

In time though, she does seem to develop a morality about her actions. After seducing a disfigured man, she lets him escape and then attempts to escape herself. Running from the purpose she was sent here for and from the men on motorbikes who watch over her.

Whilst on the run in the countryside, she is befriended by a stranger. He still wants to get physical with her, of course, as does a worker in the forest, although in a more forceful manner. Suddenly the hunter has become the hunted.

It’s a bit off the wall at times and maybe having read the novel would have helped but I haven't. Yet I was just happy to go with it and embrace the fact that this alien girl (aren't they all) sinks her naked male suitors into the alien equivalent of a shagpile carpet.

Johansson is superb and brave to take on this type of role. She manages to exude a total lack of emotion throughout in such a way that, unbelievably, you kind of sympathise with her.