Alien in Scotland

Under the Skin

Director: Jonathan Glazer

Writers: Jonathan Glazer, Walter Campbell, Michel Faber (novel)

Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy McWilliams, Michael Moreland

Runtime: 108 minutes

Certification: 15

Rating: 4/5

Grating noise over a blackout. A pinprick of light. The noise intensifies, the light grows. More. More. The light spills out, begin to refract. Colours seep through. The noise becomes deeply, deeply unsettling. And suddenly: title cards. And Scotland.

Under the Skin’s opening few minutes are almost the film in miniature. The visuals move from a mixture of darkness and blinding light via the gloomy, ominous Scottish countryside to weird spaces that aren’t spaces* where Scarlett Johansson’s alien intimately interacts with members of the human race. There’s disconcertingly nonsexual nudity, and an inescapable feeling of something being ‘off’. There’s a mysterious Biker figure who is almost terrifying in how ruthless yet unexplained he appears, aiding the alien without ever directly engaging with her (beyond a lengthy stare).

And the score. Oh, the score. Johansson may be the star on the poster, but it’s the sound that truly steals the show here. Levi’s score never gives you a moment to recover, continually subjecting you to discomfort, always adding to what’s on screen.

To all intents and purposes, the film continues with those points. But as it progresses, as the alien explores our world, it becomes something more. The early scenes of Johansson moving unnoticed among crowds are both troubling and brilliant, forcing a re-examination of everyday life. The sound editing skews everything, the cinematography leaves everything feeling off-kilter, and it works. It works so, so well. A shopping centre is almost terrifying in its unrelenting aural assault. The motorways fade into blurs of moving lights. Vast, sprawling estates become claustrophobic, threatening.

And all this comes together in one stand-out scene, as the alien stands and impassively watches a mother and father drown at the beach, leaving behind a tiny child. A fellow bystander dives in to try and save the father, and still the alien watches, unfeeling, as he is thrown ashore gasping and weakened. And only then does she intervene. It’s a horrifyingly, masterfully shot scene, with a full awareness of the cinematic language that leaves us watching the action at a remove with the alien, all long shots and muted sound. Only the waves truly crash through to us.

I’m getting shudders just thinking about it.

I’m not convinced I have enough words in my vocabulary to accurately – fully – express how Under the Skin will make you feel. I’m throwing as many synonyms for ‘unsettling’ as I can find at it, and I’m still short. This is an experience of a film, and it’s one that demands to be seen in the cinema to fully appreciate it for what it is. In the dark, with Levi’s score blasting into your ears, it’s incredible.