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Mysterious Skin (2004) Certificate 18

Mysterious Skin
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Rated 3.0 stars
Average rating
(62%)
 
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt | Brady Corbett | Elisabeth Shue | Michelle Trachtenberg
Director: Gregg Araki
Studio: TARTAN FILMS
Run time: 101 mins
Genres: Drama
Languages: English
Dubbed: None
Hearing-impaired: None
Subtitles: None
Released: October 24, 2005

In 1981, in Hutchinson, Kansas, the eight years old boy Neil McCormick is sexually abused by his pedophile baseball coach and his deranged and promiscuous mother does not pay attention. Meanwhile, the also eight years Brian Lackey awakes from a brief amnesia of four hours with a bleeding nose, but his negligent father does not pay attention to the event. Brian grows-up believing he had been abducted by aliens. The gay Neil grows-up as a hustler. When Brian is eighteen years old, he looks for and meets Neil, who discloses dark innermost secrets of their past.

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Highest rated reviews

53 out of 74 people found the following review helpful:

Rated 5 stars
Stunning movie

A Customer from Kent , England, 5th October, 2005

This film is the best of its kind i have ever seen. It is a rollercoaster from start to end. Superbly cast with the acting painfully believable. The film is very careful to stay in context and not over emphasise the graphic points leaving enough to the shocked imagination. my heart was pulled from scene to scene. As a victim of similar life to the lead role i felt strongly intuned to his life and truly believed his performance. A must buy for anyone who can cope with the powerfull story and haunting visuals.

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31 out of 34 people found the following review helpful:

Rated 4 stars
Can you handle a harsh,frank yet sensitive exploration of paedophilia and male prostitution?If so,crack on!

QPR Olly from Shepherd's Bush,England, 20th May, 2007

Feel-good family fare?Not a bit of it,strictly adult heavy-yet- rewarding,going. Have you seen Kevin Bacon in 'The Woodsman',Todd Solondz's 'Happiness' or David Slade's excellent debut 'Hard Candy'?;got through the often sordid and gruelling subject matter,and enjoyed them?If so you'll like this film. The two male leads are linked by traumatic events suffered as 8 years olds.One, (the brilliant Joseph Gordon Levitt of '3rd Rock From The Sun' and more notably 'Brick' fame) turns into a cold amoral male prostitute,the other (the also very good, Brady Corbet) a sexless geek convinced of alien abduction.Levitt's character Brian,suffers such brutal degredation from his clients,that director Gregg Araki makes you despair for human male(gay?)sexuality.But the film is by no means unremittingly bleak;firstly Brian has two caring humane friends...- (one is the..wake up hetero men!.. corruscating beauty Michelle Trachtenberg,Buffy's little sister.How come Hollywood doesn't offer her lead roles when she's a better actress than Mischa Barton?)..-and secondly there is a rare beauty in the look of Arraki's film somewhat reminiscent of 'Rumblefish'.A tough watch but a well-acted, memorable film.

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26 out of 27 people found the following review helpful:

Rated 5 stars
A work of art, if not for everyone

A Customer from London, UK, 26th January, 2006

Last time I was this moved by a film, it was The Railway Children or It's A Wonderful Life. Rather different subject matter - there's scenes of paedophilia, and rape which although not explicit, and implied so strongly that it's incredible the film was made at all. Perfect use of dreamy indie music (Sigur Ros, Robin Guthrie, Cocteau Twins etc), stunning cinematography, incredible performances all round, ingenious use of POV shots and voice overs to film traumatic scenes without traumatising the child actors themselves. It's a movie about childhood and types of denial, about the need to face the truth in order to move on. Free of cliche, you've never seen anything like it. I found it hard to enjoy lighter fare for a while - the stakes had been raised. An absolute work of art.

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18 out of 21 people found the following review helpful:

Rated 1 stars
Sick and Wrong

jamie balcanquall from Sussex, 15th June, 2006

NOBODY needs to see this sort of thing! Least of all I would imagine, people who have been through this sort of trauma. It would be all too easy to stumble across it and not realise what it was about! CHANGE THE SYNOPSIS!!

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Most recent reviews

Rated 4 stars
Mysterious Skin

Declan6107 from , 3rd March, 2010

In 1981, in Hutchinson, Kansas, the eight years old boy Neil McCormick is sexually abused by his pedophile baseball coach and his deranged and promiscuous mother does not pay attention. Meanwhile, the also eight years Brian Lackey awakes from a brief amnesia of four hours with a bleeding nose, but his negligent father does not .

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Rated 4 stars
Enjoyable

sailbatten from , 28th February, 2010

Really enjoyed this movie. Highly recomended.

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Rated 4 stars
'Mysterious Skin'

corbo37 from , 20th February, 2010

fantastic movie joseph gordon levitt is brilliant always like his films very versatile actor this film is a very sad and disturbing portrayl of child abuse and its after math into later life.

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Rated 2 stars
Mysterious skin

A Customer from Weymouth, 17th February, 2010

Justcould not get my head around this films didn't make it to end of film.

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