Mysterious Skin review

Based on Scott Heim's award-winning novel, Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin is a difficult film that deals with the difficult subject of child abuse. Suffice to say that this is not for the faint-hearted, and film's depiction of certain cinematic taboos - most of all the portrayal of sex between an adult and a child - makes for decidedly uneasy viewing. This is not to say that the film in any way condones such behaviour - far from it - but the leap forward in what is acceptable to a mass audience is both startling and uncomfortable. The subject is both the film's central theme and its chief talking point and will dominate any discussion on what is otherwise a somewhat earnest, painfully hip yet ultimately uneven and morally ambiguous work.

The story revolves around two teenagers from rural Kansas named Brian (Brady Corbett) and Neil (Joesph Gordon-Levitt), who have now drifted apart but share a common memory of something that happened when they were eight years old. The former friends have different recollections of a night that saw them both lose five hours of their life. Brian, now a somewhat geeky adolescent, is convinced that both of them were abducted by aliens. He obsesses about the fact, watching programmes on alien abductions all day long and talking to anyone who crosses his path about it.

Neil on the other hand, knows exactly what happened. Now a confident and extremely handsome young man, he has moved to the big city and plies his trade as a hustler on the gay scene. Always confident of his sexuality, Neil knows that the alien abduction was in fact a kidnapping and sexual abuse case involving the two boys and their charismatic baseball coach (Bill Sage), a charming figure that could persuade the boys to do just about anything he wanted.

And that's exactly what he did. With increasingly disturbing scenes the film plays out the boys at first kissing to becoming more intimate with each other until the Coach himself becomes involved. It's genuinely shocking stuff, and although nothing is exploitative in the way the film was made, the result is one of sheer horror that is extremely difficult to watch.

The boys clearly react differently to the event, with Neil confused about his own feelings towards his abuser. While there is certainly no condoning of such a relationship, the film examines the impact of such an occurrence with a fresh and uneasy eye, which some viewers may find tricky to assimilate. Despite a standout performance from the extraordinary Joseph-Gordon Levitt as Neil and a memorably creepy turn from Sam Cage as the abuser, this is tough stuff: both to watch and to fully empathise with.

Paul Hurley