Skin (2018) →

Written and Directed by Guy Nattiv, Starring Jamie Bell, Danielle Macdonald, Daniel Henshall and Bill Camp

Within film, if you pay close enough attention, there are genres within genres. If you watch enough of them, you begin to notice the same tones, beats, messages, etc, in similar films. Like it's predecessors, the message is simple: Racism is bad.

In this feature based off of the Oscar-winning short-film of the same name from the same year, Skin tells the story of “a young man (Jamie Bell), raised by skinheads and notorious among white supremacists who turns his back on hatred and violence to transform his life” (IMDb.com).

Where the film triumphs is where any good film should. It has great performances, most notably by Bell and Camp, and beautiful cinematography by Arnaud Potier. But I struggle to think of anything that would make this film memorable, or at the very least, stick out from similar films (American History X, Imperium, The Believer). It is certainly a good movie, but for me, it does not have that one thing that pushes it over the edge. There is nothing that will stick with me.

There simply was nothing new about this film. I felt as though I had already seen it and the version I had seen was the director’s cut that was above and beyond better than the theatrical release. There were certainly moments of brilliance, but they were often overshadowed by the director running through the motions. And what’s worse is that there was no moment of clarity that felt like a “wake-up” moment. Perhaps that was what the filmmaker intended.

Jamie Bell as Bryon Widner

Overall, I was just left feeling nothing. With the exception of one scene (which will remain unmentioned to avoid spoilers), the entire run-time felt flat. I didn’t feel the shock of realization that these people live among us like I did with Imperium and I didn’t feel like we went on a journey of reevaluation like we did with Edward Norton in American History X. It felt safe and flat. Maybe down the road, I will rewatch it and feel differently. But after how excited I was to watch this movie, I was left disappointed.

My Rating: B-