Movie Review: Mysterious Skin

27.08.2010 | By: S. B.

A deeply-moving story of a tragic childhood, dark past and the world of prostitution.

The coach first throws an eye on the mother and then seduces her son.

Two boys are connected by fate

Mysterious skin has a similar beginning to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We meet a young boy called Brian who is convinced that his town is visited by aliens. His family consists of an ignorant father, a loving mother and an elder sister. Together with his mother ans sister, one evening Neil notices a mysterious light in the sky circling above the town. Because of the event, the blond boy becomes obsessed with the idea that the Earth was attacked by extra-terrestrial creatures. One day Brian comes home with a bleeding nose, but he doesn't remember the cause of the accident. He believes he was kidnapped by the aliens, who used him for various tests.

The story then jumps a few scenes and starts showing the life of another boy Neil, who lives alone with his mother. She has an affair with Neil's baseball coach. The dark-haired boy feels sexually aroused for the first time while watching his mother and the coach kissing and touching, which leads him to masturbation. He soon realizes that the coach is the one who excites him and he finds him irresistibly beautiful.

The coach invites Neil to his home where he plays with him and the boy enjoys the attention of a grown-up man, with whom he is falling in love. The man is gentle and interesting, so Neil complies with his request of posing for him in front of the camera. Mysterious skin shows the transformation of an innocent play into a dangerous pedophile game between the boy and the coach who slowly abuses Neil's trust in a physical and psychical way.

Mysterious skin - a dark story about sad childhood.

Mysterious skin is a story about the dark past

Brian, who is obsessed with aliens, comes to the conclusion that the boy who often appears in his terrifying dreams looks very familiar. After some research, he discovers that the boy is actually Neil, so he plans to visit him and ask him if he was also visited by aliens. Brian wants to know the truth, but the truth is completely different from the images in his head that he believed in for so long.

Mysterious skin is a deeply touching movie because it tells a cruel story about the dark side of prostitution, abuse of sexually innocent children and how our psyche plays games with us. Our subconsciousness if full misleading ideas and dark secrets but we are too afraid to face the truth.