Download Under The Skin script PDF for personal, private use here.

Under The Skin is a unique and thought provoking sci-fi thriller by the elusive British director Jonathan Glazer. The film centres on an alien lifeform who arrives on earth, in Glasgow strangely enough, and inhabits the body of a woman, before methodically combing through the backstreets of the city to seduce young, single men into its lair.  What then happens is eerie, horrifying, mesmerising and exceptionally well shot. I don’t want to spoil it. As the alien goes about its macabre task, it is followed and protected/controlled by another alien who drives a motorbike at incredible speeds and is never seen out of his leathers. 

 In one of the most unusual and unlikely casting decisions, Scarlett Johansson plays the original alien whilst her partner is played by former British Grand Prix MotoGP medallist Jeremy McWilliams. Johansson shot this film, the majority of it spent in a white van trundling along side allies and M roads in Scotland, in the midst of her ultra-lucrative Marvel contract. What’s more, she was forced to get a UK van license, learn an English accent and then approach random men asking for directions; large swathes of the film were shot with hidden cameras out of the back of the van. In spite of, or perhaps because of, the intensely bizarre situation, Johansson puts in one of her most impressive and powerful performances yet. The ease with which she seduces the men and destroys them with her innocent but intense persona is almost sickening. The alien's own journey of realising what it means to be a human woman, physically, psychologically and sociologically is one of the most fascinating and moving commentaries on gender that I’ve ever seen. 

The soundtrack is haunting and hypnotic, imbuing the film with a real palpable sense of terror. There is one misfire in the film, a scene involving a baby abandoned on a beach after its parents have died. It’s distractingly harrowing in a way that doesn’t aid the story at all. Beyond that, this is a rare gem of a film, made in bizarre and outlandish circumstances demonstrating to anyone questioning Johansson's seriousness as an actress just how wrong they are and showing Jonathan Glazer to be one of the most intentional, intelligent and psychologically explorative directors since Stanley Kubrick. 

EveryFilmIWatch is multi-channel film review project run by Sebastian Cox, ScriptUp co-founder. Further reviews can be found on Instagram.