Mysterious Skin

2004 film by Gregg Araki

Mysterious Skin is a 2004 coming of age drama film written, produced, and directed by Gregg Araki, adapted from Scott Heim's 1995 novel of the same name. The film tells the story of two pre adolescent boys who both experienced sexual abuse as children, and how it affects their lives in different ways into their young adulthood. One boy becomes a reckless, sexually adventurous sex worker (played by Joseph Gordon Levitt), while the other (Brady Corbet) retreats into a reclusive fantasy of alien abduction. Mysterious Skin premiered at the 61st Venice International Film Festival in September 2004, moving into wider distribution in May 2005 without a rating. It grossed $2.1 million at the box office and received critical acclaim. Psychologists have praised Mysterious Skin for its accurate depiction of the long term effects of child sex abuse.

Two eight year old Little League teammates, Neil McCormick and Brian Lackey, both experience life altering events during the summer of 1981 in Hutchinson, Kansas. Neil, the son of an irresponsible single mother and already discovering his own homosexuality, is sexually abused by the Little League coach, who leaves town after that summer. Brian, whose parents are often neglectful or busy working, only remembers that it started to rain during a game. The next thing he remembers is being in the crawl space of his house with a bloody nose, having no memory of the intervening five hours. Neil views the coach's abuse as love, and develops an attraction to older men. He begins working as a sex worker at the age of 15, and continues doing so three years later when he moves to New York City, where his best friend, Wendy Peterson, now lives. In New York, Neil has an emotional encounter with a client, Zeke, who is dying from AIDS and (instead of sex) only wants to feel another person's touch. Afterward, Neil begins withdrawing from sex work and takes a job at a sandwich shop with assistance and encouragement from Wendy. Brian suffers from chronic nosebleeds, blackouts, and bedwetting for years after being in the crawl space. He also has recurring dreams about being touched by a strange, bluish hand, which eventually leads Brian to suspect he may have been abducted by aliens. Another boy wearing the same Little League uniform begins to appear in these dreams later on. At 18, Brian meets a woman named Avalyn Friesen, who also believes she was abducted by aliens. They start to form a friendship, but when she makes sexual advances toward him, he panics and refuses to speak to her again. Brian sees a photo of his Little League team as he tries to untangle his confused memories, recognizing a young Neil as the other boy from his dreams. Meanwhile, after a client brutally rapes and beats him, Neil returns to Hutchinson to spend Christmas with his mother. There, Neil and Brian meet for the first time in over a decade. After breaking into the house that was previously rented by the Little League coach, Neil tells Brian what happened that night: the coach offered to drive Brian home with Neil after a baseball game was rained out, as Brian did not have a ride. Instead, they all went to the coach's house, where the coach performed sex acts on the boys and made them perform sex acts on each other. At one point, Brian collapsed face first onto the floor, giving him a bloody nose, while a porch light caused the atmosphere to have an eerie blue color. Having finally learned the truth, Brian breaks down crying and is comforted by Neil as Christmas carolers sing "Silent Night".

Both Joseph Gordon Levitt and Michelle Trachtenberg, by the time the film went into production, were looking for independent films where making money was not the main goal. Trachtenberg was filming EuroTrip (2004) in Prague when she first received the script, and quickly decided to join production. Made on a low budget, filming commenced in August 2003 and lasted only three weeks, which gave the cast and crew no possibility of doing retakes.

Mysterious Skin received an 87% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 109 reviews with an average rating of 7.40/10. The site's consensus states: "Bold performances and sensitive, spot on direction make watching this difficult tale of trauma and abuse a thought provoking, resonant experience." On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the film has a score of 74 out of 100 based on 32 critics indicating generally favourable reviews. Ella Taylor from LA Weekly wrote "A warped, but beautiful and strangely hopeful, coming of age tale." Roger Ebert gave Mysterious Skin 3.5 out of a possible 4 stars, describing it as "at once the most harrowing and, strangely, the most touching film I have seen about child abuse". Steven Rea of The Philadelphia Inquirer awarded the film 3 out of 4 stars, stating that Mysterious Skin ultimately "manages to deal with its raw, awful subject matter in ways that are both challenging and illuminating". Gordon Levitt was praised by critics for his performance, and the actor has stated that people on the streets had come up to him to applaud his performance in the film. the novel Mysterious Skin is an uncommonly accurate portrayal of the long term effect of child sexual abuse on boys.

The US MPAA rated the film NC 17, which the studio appealed unsuccessfully. The film was released theatrically in the US without a rating. Mysterious Skin was the subject of some controversy in Australia, where the Australian Family Association requested a review of its classification, seeking to have the film outlawed due to its depiction of pedophilia. They suggested that the film could be used by pedophiles for sexual gratification or to help them groom children for sexual abuse. The six member Classification Review Board voted four to two in favour of maintaining an R18+ rating. The controversy is referenced in a review excerpt from The Sydney Morning Herald on the Region 4 DVD that reads: "How anyone could have wanted it banned is beyond me"; film critic Margaret Pomeranz evinced that the film does more for the case against pedophilia, stating: "People who do indulge in crimes like that, if they saw this film they would understand the damage that they do."