''Mysterious Skin'' is a 2004

coming-of-age film Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can ...

written and directed by

Gregg Araki Gregg Araki (born December 17, 1959) is an American filmmaker. He is noted for his heavy involvement with the New Queer Cinema movement. His film '' Kaboom'' (2010) was the first winner of the Cannes Film Festival Queer Palm. Early life and e ...

, adapted from

Scott Heim Scott Heim (born 1966) is an American novelist from Hutchinson, Kansas, currently living in Massachusetts. Heim's first novel, ''Mysterious Skin'', was published in 1995. Biography Scott Heim was born in Hutchinson, Kansas, in 1966. He attende ...

's 1995 novel of the same name. The film tells the story of two pre-adolescent boys who both experienced sexual abuse as children, and how it affects their lives in different ways into their young adulthood. One boy becomes a reckless, sexually adventurous prostitute (played by

Joseph Gordon-Levitt Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt (; born February 17, 1981) is an American actor. He has received various accolades, including nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his leading performances ...

), while the other (

Brady Corbet Brady James Monson Corbet (; born August 17, 1988) is an American actor and filmmaker. Corbet is known for playing Mason Freeland in the film ''Thirteen'', Brian Lackey in the film '' Mysterious Skin'', Alan Tracy in the 2004 film '' Thunderbird ...

) retreats into a reclusive fantasy of

alien abduction Alien abduction (also called abduction phenomenon, alien abduction syndrome, or UFO abduction) refers to the phenomenon of people reporting their experience of being kidnapped by extraterrestrial beings and subjected to physical and psychologica ...

. ''Mysterious Skin'' premiered at the

61st Venice International Film Festival The 61st annual Venice International Film Festival was held between 1 and 11 September 2004. The festival opened with Steven Spielberg's ''The Terminal'', and closed with Katsuhiro Otomo's '' Steamboy''. The Golden Lion was awarded to the fi ...

in September 2004, although it was not more widely distributed until May 2005 without a rating. It grossed $2.1 million at the box office and received critical acclaim. Psychologists have praised ''Mysterious Skin'' for its accurate depiction of the long-term effects of child sex abuse.

Plot

Two eight-year-old

Little League Little League Baseball and Softball (officially, Little League Baseball Inc) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizationHutchinson,

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...

. Neil, the son of an irresponsible single mother and already discovering his own homosexuality, is

sexually abused Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assau ...

by the Little League coach, who leaves town after that summer. Brian, whose parents are often neglectful or busy working, only remembers that it started to rain during a game. The next thing he remembers is being in the crawl space of his house with a bloody nose, having no memory of the intervening five hours. Neil views the coach's abuse as love, and develops an attraction to older men. He begins working as a hustler at the age of 15, and continues doing so three years later when he moves to New York City, where his best friend, Wendy Peterson, now lives. In New York, Neil has an emotional encounter with a client, Zeke, who is dying from AIDS and (instead of sex) only wants to feel another person's touch. Afterward, Neil begins withdrawing from sex work and takes a job at a sandwich shop with assistance and encouragement from Wendy. Brian suffers from chronic nosebleeds, blackouts, and bedwetting for years after coming to in the crawl space. He also has

recurring dream A recurring dream is a dream which is experienced repeatedly over a long period. They can be pleasant or nightmarish and unique to the person and their experiences. Common themes in recurring dreams Through psychological analyses and studies, s ...

s about being touched by a strange, bluish hand, which eventually lead Brian to suspect he may have been abducted by aliens. Another boy wearing the same Little League uniform begins to appear in these dreams later on. At 18, Brian meets a woman named Avalyn Friesen, who also believes she was abducted by aliens. They start to form a friendship, but when she makes sexual advances toward him, he panics and refuses to speak to her again. Brian sees a photo of his Little League team as he tries to untangle his confused memories, recognizing a young Neil as the other boy from his dreams. Meanwhile, after a client brutally rapes and beats him, Neil returns to Hutchinson to spend Christmas with his mother. There, Neil and Brian meet for the first time in over a decade. After breaking into the house that was previously rented by the Little League coach, Neil tells Brian what happened that night: the coach offered to drive Brian home with Neil after a baseball game was rained out, as Brian did not have a ride. Instead, they all went to the coach's house, where the coach performed sex acts on the boys and made them perform sex acts on each other. At one point, Brian collapsed face-first onto the floor, giving him a bloody nose, while a porch light caused the atmosphere to have an eerie blue color. Having finally learned the truth, Brian breaks down crying and is comforted by Neil as Christmas carolers sing “

Silent Night "Silent Night" (german: "Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht", links=no, italic=no) is a popular Christmas carol, composed in 1818 by Franz Xaver Gruber to lyrics by Joseph Mohr in the small town of Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria. It was declared an ...

Cast

as Neil McCormick ** Chase Ellison as young Neil McCormick *

as Brian Lackey ** George Webster as young Brian Lackey *

Michelle Trachtenberg Michelle Trachtenberg (; born October 11, 1985) is an American actress and model. Trachtenberg began her career at age three, appearing in a number of commercials, films, and television series as a child. Her starring role on the Nickelodeon tel ...

as Wendy ** Riley McGuire as young Wendy * Jeff Licon as Eric Preston * Mary Lynn Rajskub as Avalyn Friesen *

Elisabeth Shue Elisabeth Judson Shue (born October 6, 1963) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles in the films ''The Karate Kid'' (1984), '' Adventures in Babysitting'' (1987), ''Cocktail'' (1988), '' Back to the Future Part II'' (1989), ''B ...

as Ellen McCormick * Bill Sage as Coach * Chris Mulkey and Lisa Long as Mr. and Mrs. Lackey *

Richard Riehle Richard Riehle (born May 12, 1948) is an American character actor. He portrayed Walt Finnerty on ''Grounded for Life'' (2001–2005) and The Warden on ''The Young and the Restless'' (2007). He also appeared in over 200 films, including '' Glory' ...

as Charlie * Kelly Kruger as Deborah ** Rachael Nastassja Kraft as young Deborah *

Billy Drago William Eugene Burrows (November 30, 1945 – June 24, 2019), known professionally by his stage name Billy Drago, was an American television and film actor. Drago's films, in which he was frequently cast as a villain, included Clint Eastwood's w ...

as Zeke

Production

Both

and

, by the time the film went into production, were looking for independent films where making money was not the main goal. Trachtenberg was filming '' EuroTrip'' (2004) in Prague when she first received the script, and quickly decided to join production. Gordon-Levitt was especially praiseful of Araki for allowing him to join production, and commented in a 2005 interview: "It is a really different role for me, and I'll always be really grateful to Gregg for believing that I could do a role like this. I've played the nice kid, and the smart one or funny one and even the angry one, but Gregg was the first one to call me sexy, and I'll always be really grateful for that." Araki approached Gordon-Levitt, who was by then struggling to find work for over a year, after seeing him in '' Manic'' (2001). Made on a low budget, filming commenced in August 2003 and lasted only three weeks, which gave the cast and crew no possibility of doing retakes. A number of measures were taken to avoid exposing the child actors to the sexual and abusive aspects of the story. Although their parents were given the entire shooting script to review, the boys were given separate scripts which included only the activities they would be performing, and their roles and the characters' relationships were explained to them in innocent terms. All of the sexual abuse involving children is implied rather than being directly depicted, and the scenes in which this seduction and abuse takes place were filmed with each actor performing alone and addressing the camera rather than the other actor, then edited together, so the children did not see or hear the performance by the adult actor playing the abuser.

Reception

''Mysterious Skin'' received an 86% "Certified Fresh" rating on review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

based on 109 reviews with an average rating of 7.40/10. The site's consensus states: "Bold performances and sensitive, spot-on direction make watching this difficult tale of trauma and abuse a thought-provoking, resonant experience." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which uses a weighted average, the film has a score of 73 out of 100 based on 32 reviews. Lou Lumenick from the ''

New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com. It was established ...

'' commented, "Not for the squeamish, but it is a beautifully crafted and thoughtful film that genuinely provokes." Ella Taylor from LA Weekly wrote “A warped, but beautiful and strangely hopeful, coming-of-age tale.” Roger Ebert gave ''Mysterious Skin'' 3.5 out of a possible 4 stars, describing it as "at once the most harrowing and, strangely, the most touching film I have seen about child abuse." Steven Rhea of ''

The Philadelphia Inquirer ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Pennsy ...

'' awarded the film 3 out of 4 stars, stating that ''Mysterious Skin'' ultimately "manages to deal with its raw, awful subject matter in ways that are both challenging and illuminating." Gordon-Levitt was praised by critics for his performance, and the actor has stated that people on the streets had come up to him to applaud his performance in the film. His portrayal of a teenage hustler inspired director

Scott Frank A. Scott Frank (born March 10, 1960) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and author. Frank has received two Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay for ''Out of Sight'' (1998) and ''Logan'' (2017). His film work, c ...

to cast him in '' The Lookout'' (2007). According to psychologist Richard Gartner, the novel ''Mysterious Skin'' is an uncommonly accurate portrayal of the long-term effect of

child sexual abuse Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in sexual activities with a child (whet ...

on boys.

Rating issues

The US

MPAA The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, as well as the video streaming service Netflix. Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distribu ...

rated the film

NC-17 The Motion Picture Association film rating system is used in the United States and its territories to rate a motion picture's suitability for certain audiences based on its content. The system and the ratings applied to individual motion pictures ...

, which the studio appealed unsuccessfully. The film was released theatrically in the US without a rating. ''Mysterious Skin'' was the subject of some controversy in Australia, where the Australian Family Association requested a review of its classification, seeking to have the film outlawed due to its depiction of

pedophilia Pedophilia ( alternatively spelt paedophilia) is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of puberty ...

. They suggested that the film could be used by pedophiles for sexual gratification or to help them groom children for sexual abuse. The six-member Classification Review Board voted four-to-two in favour of maintaining an R18+ rating. The controversy is referenced in a review excerpt from ''

The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...

'' on the Region 4

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

that reads: "How anyone could have wanted it banned is beyond me"; film critic

Margaret Pomeranz Margaret Pomeranz (born 14 July 1944) is an Australian film critic, writer, producer and television personality. Early life Pomeranz was born Margeret Anne Jones-Owen on 14 July 1944 in Waverley, a suburb of Sydney. She was educated at the P ...

expressed that the film does more for the case against pedophilia, stating: "People who do indulge in crimes like that, if they saw this film they would understand the damage that they do."

Soundtrack

The

film score A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to e ...

was composed by

Harold Budd Harold Montgomory Budd (May 24, 1936December 8, 2020) was an American composer and poet. Born in Los Angeles and raised in the Mojave Desert, he became a respected composer in the minimalist and avant-garde scene of Southern California in the ...

and

Robin Guthrie Robin Andrew Guthrie (born 4 January 1962) is a Scottish musician, songwriter, composer, record producer and audio engineer, best known as the co-founder of the alternative rock band Cocteau Twins. During his career Guthrie has performed ...

. Other songs include: # "Golden Hair" –

Slowdive Slowdive is a British rock band that formed in Reading, Berkshire, in 1989. The band consists of Rachel Goswell on vocals and guitar, Neil Halstead on vocals and guitar, Christian Savill on guitar, Nick Chaplin on bass and Simon Scott on d ...

(written by Syd Barrett) # "Galaxy" –

Curve In mathematics, a curve (also called a curved line in older texts) is an object similar to a line, but that does not have to be straight. Intuitively, a curve may be thought of as the trace left by a moving point. This is the definition that ...

# "Game Show" – Dag Gabrielsen, Bill Campbell, Nelson Foltz, Robert Roe # "Catch the Breeze" – Slowdive # "Crushed" – Cocteau Twins # "Dagger" – Slowdive # "I Guess I Fell in Love Last Night" – Dag Gabrielsen,

Alex Lacamoire Alex Lacamoire (born May 24, 1975) is a Cuban-American composer, arranger, conductor, musical director, music copyist, and orchestrator who has worked on many shows both on and off-Broadway. He is the recipient of multiple Tony and Grammy Aw ...

# "I Could Do Without Her" – Dag Gabrielsen, Alex Lacamoire # "Drive Blind" –

Ride Ride may refer to: People * MC Ride, a member of Death Grips * Sally Ride (1951–2012), American astronaut * William Ride (19262011), Australian zoologist Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Ride'' (1998 film), a 1998 comedy by Millicen ...

# "O Come All Ye Faithful" – Tom Meredith, Cydney Neal, Arlo Levin, Isaiah Teofilo # "Away in a Manger" – Tom Meredith, Cydney Neal, Arlo Levin, Isaiah Teofilo # "Silent Night" – Tom Meredith, Cydney Neal, Arlo Levin, Isaiah Teofilo,

Evan Rachel Wood Evan Rachel Wood (born September 7, 1987) is an American actress and activist. She is the recipient of a Critics' Choice Television Award as well as three Primetime Emmy Award nominations and three Golden Globe Award nominations for her work ...

, John Mason # "Samskeyti" – Sigur Rós # "Blue Skied an' Clear" – Slowdive

Awards

* 2004

Bergen International Film Festival The Bergen International Film Festival (BIFF) is a film festival held annually in October in Bergen, Norway since 2000, and is the largest film festival in the nation in number of films. The festival celebrated its 20th edition in 2019, featuring ...

– Jury Award * 2006 Polished Apple Awards – Best Movie * 2006 Icelandic Queer Film Festival – Best Fictional Work

References

External links

* * * * *
''Mysterious Skin'' script

Interview with Gregg Araki about ''Mysterious Skin''
in ''Ion'' magazine {{DEFAULTSORT:Mysterious Skin 2004 films 2004 drama films 2004 independent films 2004 LGBT-related films 2000s coming-of-age drama films 2000s teen drama films American coming-of-age drama films American independent films American teen drama films American teen LGBT-related films Dutch coming-of-age films Dutch drama films Dutch independent films Dutch LGBT-related films Dutch teen films 2000s English-language films Films about post-traumatic stress disorder Films about child sexual abuse Films about nightmares Films about male prostitution in the United States Films based on American novels Films directed by Gregg Araki Films set in the 1970s Films set in the 1980s Films set in the 1990s Films set in Kansas Films set in New York City Films shot in Los Angeles Films shot in New York City Gay-related films LGBT-related coming-of-age films LGBT-related drama films LGBT-related controversies in film Obscenity controversies in film 2000s American films