Mysterious Skin
Directed by Gregg Araki7.686%89%
Two pre-adolescent boys both experienced a strange event and later it affects their lives in different ways. One becomes a reckless, sexually adventurous prostitute, while the other retreats into a reclusive fantasy of alien abduction.
Cast of Mysterious Skin
Mysterious Skin Ratings & Reviews
- trrsJune 20, 2025Not my cup of tea plot was non existing for a while but finished watch since I started it. It wasn’t good imo
- faris demnatiMay 30, 2025hate that movie...
- Michael HeimgartnerMay 3, 2025A Devastating Masterpiece That Cuts Deep Mysterious Skin is not an easy film to watch, but it’s one of those rare cinematic experiences that stays with you long after the credits roll—aching, raw, and disturbingly beautiful. I knew it would be intense, but I wasn’t prepared for the emotional depth and sheer courage this film displays in dealing with trauma. Gregg Araki’s direction is subtle, confident, and haunting. He begins the story with a deliberately cryptic tone—at first, you’re unsure what kind of film you’re watching. Is it a teenage coming-of-age story? A mystery? Something surreal? There’s a sense of dreamy ambiguity in the beginning, enhanced by a soft, almost otherworldly visual style. This allows the viewer some emotional distance—a psychological shield of sorts—before the truth emerges, and when it does, it hits like a tidal wave. By the time the two boys meet again as young adults, the emotional weight becomes almost unbearable. That scene broke me. I was in tears—genuinely shaken and overwhelmed by what I was witnessing. The performances of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Brady Corbet are nothing short of extraordinary. They carry the film with subtlety and vulnerability, never overplaying a moment, always grounded in quiet pain. These are portrayals of real trauma—not stylized, not simplified, but honest and uncomfortable. Araki handles the subject matter with an almost sacred sensitivity. There is no exploitation here. Instead, he brings the invisible into light—showing how trauma lives on, how it shapes identity, how silence can devastate. The film doesn’t offer easy answers or catharsis, but it forces you to look—and that, in itself, is powerful. Mysterious Skin doesn’t just tackle a taboo subject; it forces a conversation that society is too often unwilling to have. It confronts, disturbs, and provokes—but always with purpose. It reminds us that healing is not always clean, and sometimes, the deepest wounds are the ones we pretend don’t exist. Technically, the film is also remarkable. The cinematography is delicate, often dreamlike. The score by Harold Budd and Robin Guthrie wraps the viewer in a melancholic haze, softening the harshness of the subject matter while underscoring its emotional intensity. These aesthetic choices create a poetic contrast to the horror beneath the surface. Mysterious Skin is one of the most important and devastating films I’ve ever seen. It’s a film that hurts—but in a necessary, unflinching way. It challenges you. It asks you to look at something society often hides. And in doing so, it becomes not only unforgettable—but essential.
- godzill416April 26, 2025Deeply saddening, and if I didn't have my roots in weirder, often sci-fi or fantasy movies, this would be a top 5. Great.
