Under the Skin: Response
Personally, I found the film incredibly boring and dull. When watching the film, I constantly felt like all the scenes and shots within them were drastically dragged on and long-winded. Combined with the fact that the film made zero sense to me, as all the messages they were trying to convey didn’t become clear at any point. Towards the middle section of the film I began to become bored of the “plot” as no information had been given to the audience, which made me want to stop paying any attention as it felt like a waste of time. During the ending scene of the film, I had the same reaction that I would have to a climax of a film from a different genre, such as an action film. When the credits started rolling, I felt disappointed and confused, and it gave me the feeling that the film was actually unfinished and required a longer narrative. One the film has ended I realised that many of the stories within most of the scenes were the same but with one differently character and scenario.
Although I thought the film was incredibly confusing and made no sense, I think that I understand one of the messages that the film was trying to explain which is that people are different on the outside compared to what they think and feel on the inside; and that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. This only became clear to me through the use of the film form elements, especially in the last scene where we see what the main character that we have been following looks like under the skin. Even though I found the film boring and dull overall, I thought that film form was used in a beautiful way as many scenes looked artistic and meaningful with metaphors; plus I felt that each individual scene had a story of it’s own because of the use of cinematography, sound, and the main actress, Scarlett Johansson.
Film Studies 