Under the Skin

Carine Adler's chic-ly grim portrait of a very confused young woman drones on for a monotonous hour and a half, even though its banal theme--repressed grief expressed as self-destructive lust--would barely sustain a twelve-minute short. Samantha Morton, as the affection-starved protagonist, is utterly fearless, exposing her own body and her character's soul with equal candor; after a couple of reels, though, I found myself wishing that she'd held something in reserve, because every five minutes of the movie looked exactly like the previous five minutes, which themselves bore a mighty suspicious resemblance to the five minutes before that, etc. As a debut, it isn't entirely without promise--Adler's got casual seaminess down pat, if nothing else--but here's hoping that her next film will tackle more than one emotion. Not recommended. (M. D'Angelo)