THE STORY – Famed aesthetician Hope Goldman is about to take her career to the next level by launching her very own skin care line. However, she soon faces a new challenge when a rival opens a boutique directly across from her store. Suspecting that someone is trying to sabotage her, she embarks on a quest to unravel the mystery of who’s trying to destroy her life.
THE CAST – Elizabeth Banks, Lewis Pullman, Luis Gerardo Méndez, Michaela Jaé (MJ) Rodriguez & Nathan Fillion
THE TEAM – Austin Peters (Director/Writer), Sam Freilich & Deering Regan (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 97 Minutes
Hope Goldman (Elizabeth Banks) is a renowned Hollywood aesthetician who is hanging on by a thread. She has sunk all her money into launching her own line of skincare products (made in Italy) and has been dodging her landlord for weeks. When a new salon owned by the mysterious Angel (Luis Gerardo Méndez) opens right across from hers, Hope feels threatened and begins investigating. As she goes deeper, Hope becomes the target of an increasingly violent and invasive campaign of harassment, pushing her to the brink of sanity until her whole empire is on the precipice of collapse. Will an overly amorous life coach (Lewis Pullman) be able to help her out of this situation?
Taking the usually very masculine world of film noir and putting it in the more feminine world of salons, spas, and self-care exposes many of the genre’s tropes and over-the-top elements. Unfortunately, director Austin Peters and co-writers Sam Freilich and Deering Regan don’t do much with that other than create a few outlandish moments. The light satire of the beauty industry is completely toothless, and the film takes itself too seriously to satirize its genre, content to crank up the dials for a scene here and there without comment. The tone can be tough to get a handle on, as the situations are often ridiculous and played at a very high pitch, but Peters never allows things to go truly over the top. “Skincare” presents a high-stakes picture of a high-pressure industry that Peters keeps fully grounded. Depending on your point of view, this is either a valiant attempt to wrangle the material or a failure of nerve to let his collaborators go all out.
Thankfully, “Skincare” has an ace up its sleeve in the form of star Elizabeth Banks. Perfectly cast as the desperate aesthetician in over her head, Banks provides a rock-solid anchor for Peters to build his world around. With her girl-next-door looks and spine of steel, Banks is always believable as a beauty entrepreneur who really believes in her work and is proud to sell it to people. Her knack for comedy translates to perfectly-timed and perfectly believable reactions to the chaos happening around her, putting the audience on Hope’s side even when it’s clear she’s gone off the deep end. Banks allows you always to see the wheels turning inside Hope’s head as she constantly calculates and recalculates the dynamics of her situation. She’s also a generous scene partner, giving everyone in the overqualified ensemble lots to react to and play off of. Whether it’s Nathan Fillion’s smarmy local morning show host, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez’s no-bullshit receptionist/best friend, or Lewis Pullman’s desperate wannabe, Banks clearly delineates each relationship, presenting a slightly different Hope to each one. When she’s alone, usually looking in a mirror, Banks reveals the true hope underneath it all: The lonely, desperate girl holding on for dear life, afraid of losing it all at any moment.
“Skincare” takes Hope’s business as part of its central theme: how we put on a persona for the world every day – just like makeup – and what happens when that persona gets pushed beyond its limits. It is intriguing to watch these characters reveal their true selves and put on their respective personas for the world. The film’s exploration of self-identity and the masks we wear in our daily lives is thought-provoking. However, once you realize that the film is playing everything straight, even when it gets outrageous, it becomes incredibly obvious where everything will end up. The cast, especially Banks, do their level best to keep everything as entertaining as possible, but you can’t help but wish everyone involved had really let loose and gone over the top with this story. Smeared makeup may be messy, but it’s striking and memorable. “Skincare” is perhaps too much like Hope: So focused on presenting something clean and fresh that it becomes bland, with an inner personality dying to break free.
