THE STORY – Down on her luck actress Samantha Lake is invited into the ultra-glamorous world of Zoe Shannon, CEO of wellness company Shell. When Shell patients begin to go missing, Samantha realizes Zoe may be protecting a monstrous secret.
THE CAST – Elisabeth Moss, Kate Hudson, Kaia Gerber, Arian Moayed, Este Haim, Lionel Boyce, Amy Landecker, Elizabeth Berkley, Peter MacNicol & Ziwe
THE TEAM – Max Minghella (Director) & Jack Stanley (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 100 Minutes
It’s always an exciting moment when two films with extremely similar premises are released around the same time. Whether it’s “Volcano” and “Dante’s Peak,” “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact,” or “Just Friends” and “Friends With Benefits,” it’s fun to see which does better at the box office and to compare and contrast the different modes of storytelling on display. It hasn’t happened in a while, but the 2024 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival saw the international premiere of Coralie Fargeat’s Cannes prizewinner, “The Substance,” followed a week later with Max Minghella’s similarly-themed, “Shell.” They’re two films about aging actresses undergoing a medical procedure to ensure their beauty, with similar satirical tones and glittering production design. Comparing the two, however, doesn’t seem fair, as their aims are completely different. “The Substance” is an angry film by a woman who has something to say about society. “Shell” is made by a man who wants to take the audience on as wild a ride as possible. Without the driving force of emotion behind it, though, “Shell” falls just short of its ambitions.
Samantha (Elisabeth Moss) used to be a bit of a celebrity. The former star of a popular family sitcom, her career stalled after the series’ cancellation, causing her to struggle ever since. She’s comfortable in her body, although her psoriasis causes her occasional discomfort. Hollywood isn’t interested at all, especially since she looks so much older than other actresses her age. After running into Chloe (Kaia Gerber), a girl she used to babysit, at an audition and being inundated with advertisements for beauty treatments by a company called Shell, Samantha decides to take her agent’s advice and take the treatment. After the treatment has been deemed successful, she receives an invitation to the home of the company’s CEO, Zoe Shannon (Kate Hudson). Zoe, a fan of Samantha’s TV show, takes her newest client under her wing, and Samantha soon sees her star start to rise again. Samantha is feeling happier and more confident than she has in a while, but as soon as she starts seeing scary blue-black scales appear on her body, she becomes concerned. The more Zoe and the doctors at Shell dismiss her concerns, the more worried she becomes, and when Chloe, who is also a Shell client, goes missing, Samantha suspects foul play. What exactly is this mysterious treatment Shell offers? Can she find out what’s going wrong before her body fully revolts?
Taking place in the near future, “Shell” leans heavily into the science fiction aspects of its premise. The production design offers some inspired touches, like how the watches everyone wears unfold off their wrists to become phones. The gleaming shine of the Shell offices and operating rooms mix corporate chic and medical cleanliness to striking effect, and Zoe’s silvery mansion matches Hudson’s seductive, glittering sex appeal. Perhaps the most striking thing is the approach the film takes to Samantha’s appearance after receiving the Shell treatments. While she certainly appears more glamorous and wears more conventionally attractive clothing, she never really looks different – her waist never gets slimmer, her cleavage never becomes more ample, and she’s not suddenly free of wrinkles. It’s almost as if just knowing that she’s a Shell client is enough to make her and everyone around her see her inner beauty, a somewhat surprising take for a film with this much camp in its DNA. Despite its killer cold open with Elizabeth Berkley, “Shell” wants to be more of a satire than a body horror film, and this is a smart choice to throw light on the lies the wellness and beauty industries sell to people.
Unfortunately, Minghella and screenwriter Jack Stanley can’t bring themselves to fully commit to the film’s camp qualities. Despite touches like advertisements for things like diet bananas and a scene in which Zoe lustily encourages Samantha to pleasure herself, the tone stays too grounded. Much of the film seems to be going for a “Death Becomes Her” vibe, especially Hudson’s deliciously catty performance and Gerber’s spot-on satire of Hollywood youth, but it’s too closely aligned with Samantha to reach the zany energy required to pull off its insane finale. While not exactly a twist ending, the last act of “Shell” goes to some unexpectedly wild places, given the approach it has taken up to that point. Had the film gone all in and really taken things over the top, the finale could have been a showstopping camp classic. Instead, it’s just a mess of tonal clashes and poor cinematography that attempts to cover up the not-quite-fully-convincing visual effects.
“Shell” certainly does take the audience on a ride, but instead of a roller coaster, it’s more like a Gravitron, where the centrifugal force keeps you pinned to the outer wall even when the floor drops out from under you. It gets the adrenaline pumping, but compared to other, more varied rides, it’s not as exciting.
