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Mysterious Skin

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 31 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 49 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by:
Gregg Araki
Scott Heim (novel)
Directed by: Gregg Araki
Release Date:
Theatrical: May 6, 2005
DVD: October 25, 2005
Running Time: minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Brady Corbet, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Elisabeth Shue, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Michelle Trachtenberg, Jeffrey Licon, Lisa Long, and Bill Sage
Based on the acclaimed novel by Scott Heim, Mysterious Skin explores the hearts and minds of two very different boys who come to find the key to their future happiness lies in the exorcism of their collective demons. (Tartan Films)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Smiley Face Splendor
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site Film Forum Profile
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
This thoughtful, troubling drama is leagues above the sensationalistic stuff Araki peddled in earlier films.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
A gorgeous, heartbreaking and utterly convincing work of art.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
The film's content is adult – and for the first time in Araki's career, so is the director.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Not for the squeamish, but it is a beautifully crafted and thoughtful film that genuinely provokes.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
At once the most harrowing and, strangely, the most touching film I have seen about child abuse.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Mysterious Skin dawdles more than it flows, but it comes alive whenever Araki, hovering between tragedy and voyeurism, reveals how sex can tear lives to pieces.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
A startling portrayal of how the cycle of abuse plays itself out in the lives of its victims.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
A helter-skelter ride of the soul, an unblinking, white-knuckle crash landing into the mushy mysteries of the subconscious.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Dennis Lim
With remarkable directness and composure, it shatters the myth of childhood innocence and the deathless taboo of prepubescent sexuality.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
Explores both prepubescent and teen sexuality with an honesty that may make some people uncomfortable, which is a sign of its potency, and a badge of honor.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
A warped, but beautiful and strangely hopeful, coming-of-age tale.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
It's hard to imagine a more serious or persuasive indictment of the horrors inflicted on children by sexual abuse than Mysterious Skin.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
The film is mentally graphic, not sexually graphic.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
An absorbing story. Even though it takes you to places you may not want to go, the film never loses its human touch--that feel of skin on skin or of the past inescapably invading the present.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Leah McLaren
Unlike Todd Solondz's "Happiness," Mysterious Skin is not an abuse movie that seeks to offend or upset.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
The film is actually a major artistic breakthrough for Araki, a onetime bad boy of independent filmmaking. Its psychological intelligence, attention to emotional currents, and humanity are surprises.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
A deft, affecting drama about childhood sexual abuse and its lifelong scars.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Mysterious Skin bears all of Araki's hallmarks, from its stylish compositions and lush colors to its willingness to confront difficult subject matter head-on.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Mysterious Skin isn't a picture about existential vacancy; it isn't even about anything so simplistic as the horrors of child abuse. It's more of a meditation on the necessity of making your way past, or through, any obstacle that prevents you from being a thinking, feeling person.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
It's an ideal collaboration: A stylish director desperately seeking substance transforms the first, somewhat flat novel of a promising young writer into powerful and brutally honest film about a highly controversial subject.
Read Full Review >Variety David Rooney
By turns spiky and lyrical, this unsettling drama will be anathema to many audiences, but is bound to be a provocative, talked-about release.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Only half a great movie, because the other half follows a separate but related thread that isn't nearly as compelling.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
A well-conceived story that is very hard to shake.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Don R. Lewis
By the end of Mysterious Skin, I felt physically exhausted but I also felt satisfied at the way it all falls into place.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
Araki is trying to work from the inside out; and he captures feelings about sexual exploitation that I've never seen onscreen--not all of them negative.
Read Full Review >Empire Damon Wise
Corbet emerges as an actor of sensitivity and depth, but it’s Gordon-Levitt who steals every scene as the damaged, destructive but ultimately sympathetic rent boy.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson
Mostly, Mysterious Skin creeps you out, and not in any kind of fun way. There's an artfulness to it, but it's hard to imagine many viewers actually using the term "enjoyed" or "entertained" in conjunction with it.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett
Dull film about pedophilia that fails to shed any light on the topic.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White
Had Araki chosen to illuminate, rather than exploit, the traumatic aftermath of child molestation, his wallow in the horrors of Mysterious Skin might have had a purpose. As it stands, his film is just another trashy look at America as the land of imbecilic perverts.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.1 (out of 10) based on 49 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Paula S. gave it a10:
One of the most harrowing and strangely touching movies I've seen in many years. The writing and acting are equally terrific.
Sirius C. gave it a10:
This movie was the best depiction on child abuse I've ever seen. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is amazing. The matter in focus is the most delicate subject you can ever put into live pictures, and yet, Gregg Araki manage to put in two seperate storylines, which in the end, connects.
Dan B. gave it a9:
I didn't like it at first but as it went on it kind of made it difficult not to accept and keep watching. Whatever that means. It's really well made. It's not for everyone and I'm not sure, even though I liked it, that it needed to be as graphic as it was.
Chad S. gave it a10:
Sometimes it's like a gay "X-Files", and sometimes it's like the third season of "My So-Called Life" that never was(Ricky and Brian Krakow become best friends); all I know is that "Mysterious Skin" is compulsively watchable, a movie whose irreverent treatment of child abuse is grounded with irony-free angst (it's nothing like the equally brilliant "Happiness" by Todd Solondz) and a soundtrack (a Fraser-less Cocteau Twins) that perfectly encapsulates the feeling of alienation in a small-town. How the celibate boy's story is actually the same story as the chicken-hawking Goth’s gets told with enigmatic verve and sensitivity. It's ingenuous how this filmmaker doesn't oversell the moment when the asexual kid starts to remember. It's fascinating how the boy's orientation is unearthed when the gay Goth tells him the whole story of his youth. "Mysterious Skin", for me, is haunting because it treats the eighties seriously. Too often, that decade is played for laughs.
Gabor A. gave it a0:
I never walk out of movies. I'll suffer through anything to criticize it afterwards and warn others. That was until I tried to watch this movie. Utterly unwatchable.
[Anonymous] gave it a9:
A powerful movie that conquers challenging themes in a remarkably entertaining fashion. Fantastic character development. Some scenes very disturbing and thought provoking. A must see for every parent.
Scott W. gave it an8:
Why is it that those who dislike movies about tough subjects, tend to dismiss them entirely without consideration? Why watch the movie in the first place? Anyway, this was a well-made movie and provides a path forward for those kids that were abused. To me, it certainly is far superior to the movies like Mystic River and Sleepers that also make attempts at exploring this stuff.
