Scarlett Johansson Sci-Fi Movie Under the Skin Returns to Free Streaming

In the internet era, plenty of movies gain secondary fame through excerpt culture. One scene, one joke, or a single frame can go viral independently of the film itself. Everyone knows the GIF of Chow Yun-fat giving a thumbs-up, but few people know it comes from A Better Tomorrow II. Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce is another example that many horror fans know only because of Mathilda May and her nudist vampire role.

Selective editing often does the original work a disservice by taking moments out of context. It strips away greater meaning to create another patch on the quilt of internet discourse.

Under the Skin fits this pattern. It stands out as one of the creepiest movies of 2014, lands on several best films of the 21st century lists, and earned numerous award nominations. Yet the internet primarily remembers it because Scarlett Johansson spends much of the film in various states of undress. Consequently, short clips circulate widely, but a relative handful of people have watched the full feature. Viewers can now fix that easily because Under the Skin recently left Tubi, where it streamed for free, and moved to Netflix.

What is Under the Skin about?

In Under the Skin, Johansson plays an unnamed woman who preys on lost and lonely people in a Scottish city. She finds prospective victims, lures them to isolated locations, and makes them disappear.

The 2000 novel behind the adaptation leaves no ambiguity about the plot. The protagonist, named Isserley in the book and left nameless in the film, acts as bait in an extraterrestrial trap that abducts humans to turn them into an expensive delicacy for an alien species.

Jonathan Glazer’s film offers a loose, Lynchian adaptation that invites multiple interpretations. On the surface, the project operates as an arthouse remake of Species where the protagonist seeks to kill anyone who will not be immediately missed. The movie lacks panicked government agents or conspiracy theorists to explain the narrative. All the exposition comes directly from Johansson, and she provides very little.

Dig deeper, and the story becomes a tale about an alien’s first few days as a human, a piece of cultural commentary, or an extended metaphor for sex and sexuality. The protagonist appears fascinated by mundane details in her environment, from ants to other people and her own body. When she lures men to their deaths, she shows no particular vindictiveness. Killing remains just another task she performs.

This impersonal tone defines the style of the feature. Nearly 14 minutes pass before anyone speaks aloud in Under the Skin, and music frequently replaces dialogue. Hidden cameras capture many scenes from strange angles, and most actors besides Johansson are amateurs or newcomers. These choices make the film feel more like an alien reality show than a standard thriller.

The movie bombed at the box office for understandable reasons. Under the Skin feels unsettling from the start, relying on long still shots reminiscent of student films. Viewers who stick with the narrative find it difficult to forget, as certain images linger in the mind for a long time.

Under the Skin functions as the third and final part of an informal trilogy of Johansson films that play with her public image. At that point in her career, Johansson had acted in films since she was 10. She had been a household name since her breakout role in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation at age 19, and she was fresh off her appearance in The Avengers.

The 2013 feature Her cast Johansson as the voice of Samantha, an AI-powered operating system who functions as a literal commodity. She followed that project with 2014’s Lucy, where her title character escapes abuse and neglect to become the most powerful person on the planet. Under the Skin completes the trilogy by turning Johansson into a hidden threat, operating like a trapdoor spider disguised in celebrity skin.

All three projects offered risky roles for an actor at the height of her Avengers fame, and each functions as a direct commentary on her star status. This group of projects forms a product trilogy, presenting a famous persona packaged for mass consumption with a warning label attached on the side.

Under the Skin is now streaming on Netflix.

Source: Polygon