Mysterious Skin

Movie review by Merle Yost, originally in the Easy Bay Voice

The movie is based on a novel of the same name by Scott Heim. I have seen a play based on the same material, but I have not read the book. This has been one of the most difficult reviews that I have ever had to write, because the subject is very close to my heart. I had to give myself some distance to really look at the film, which also speaks to its power.

I think that this is a great movie, incredibly accurate in its depiction of men who were sexually abused as children, and I encourage you to see it. I feel that it is particularly important for those men who childhood sexual abuse survivors, and the people who love them, to see this film.

There is little suspense in the film; it is all well laid out. The journey of the film is in watching the characters grow up and to begin to deal with the pain and horror of their childhoods, and the impact that had on their adulthood. The two central characters, both their adult selves and the boys portraying them as eight-year-olds, are great.

The pedophile played by Bill Sage is well represented as a caring man who pays a lot of attention to the boys. It is not violence but subtle manipulation that seduces the boys. Often the boys that are yearning for a man's attention are the most vulnerable, and he gives them something they are desperately seeking.

Our main character, Neil, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the adult and Chase Ellison as the eight-year-old, was sexually abused by his mother, so additionally being sexualized by his coach seemed only natural to him. He saw it as one of the great experiences of his life. He romanticized it and constantly tried to recreate the experience. It is called a "repetition compulsion" and is often mislabeled as sexual addiction. The sexual experiences with the coach were the most intense pleasure that he had ever received, and at eight years of age, he had neither the emotional nor physically ability to process the sensations. It is normal and common for a male in this situation to recreate the experience, to try and work through the feelings, to no longer freeze emotionally. Unfortunately, this method rarely works.

The other main character, played by Brady Corbet as the adult and George Webster at age eight, was great. Webster, in particular, did an extraordinary job of showing the dissociation that often happens to a child being sexually abused. He literally went blank and continuing into adulthood, was unable to remember what happened, so he created a screen memory to explain the feelings that he has. As he is forced to relive the real experience, he regressed into the eight-year-old boy's experience, and begins to process in the adult body those feelings that were too much as a child. Corbet also showed the other side of sexual abuse: survivors who become sexually anorexic as a way to stay away from the experience that so traumatized them.

Is he gay, when he rejects the advances of a girl and his new best friend is a gay young adult male? Who knows? He would probably not be able to figure that out until he continues to develop psychosexually after working through the trauma of the abuse where he has been frozen in time as an eight-year-old.

There are two great scenes in the film. The first scene is where Brian (Corbet) confronts his father (Chris Mulkey) for not protecting him and missing that something awful happened to him. The second is the rape of Neill by his last trick. Males sexually abused as children are much more likely to be raped as adults. The emotion ripped across the screen, and we felt their pain. That is great filmmaking and acting.

I feel like I am writing a paper on sexual abuse and attending this film for me was like watching parts of my own life as well as my work. I am a psychotherapist who is both a sexual abuse survivor and a specialist in the treatment of men who were sexually abused as adults and or as children.

The performances were uniformly good and the direction was on. It is the first Gregg Araki film that I enjoyed. It is his first mainstream film and is certainly deserving of all the attention and praise that it is getting. The women who played Neil’s and Brian’s mothers were dead on. Elisabeth Shue as the incestuous mother was real in showing her caring, boundary-crossing, inappropriate behavior. Lisa Long was so funny as the Martha Stewart of backwoods Kansas, I would laugh every time she came on the scene. Her protectiveness was evident, and we loved her for it.

My only real complaint is that I did not feel much emotion from the film. It is very detached and intellectual. You see horrible things but you never get the emotional kick except in the two scenes that I mentioned above. If the point was to see it from the emotional perspective of the two lead characters, it succeeded brilliantly. If Spielberg had directed this it would have be so over the top in feelings that I suspect that it would have been unwatchable. I have to compare it to the play from the same material and to the best movie on sexual abuse of boys that I have ever seen, The Boys of St. Vincent. Both of these other vehicles showed both the horror of the abuse as well as hit-you-below-the-belt emotions.

Still, I recommend the film. I would also suggest checking out the other movie I mentioned, and I hope that theatre companies everywhere produce the Mysterious Skin play. This message about the abuse of boys must be told over and over if we are to save another generation from this life sentence of pain. The film is great and honest material. Run to see it today before it is gone. When this comes out on DVD, I will be making this part of my collection.

By Merle Yost LMFT

Internet Movie Database entry: Mysterious Skin

A film by Gregg Araki, Director, Writer and Producer

NC17, Starring Brady Corbet, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michelle Trachtenberg, Jeff Licon, Bill Sage, Mary Lynn Rajskub and Elisabeth Shue.