SKINCARE - Mark Reviews Movies

Skincare, IFC Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 15, 2024

Another case of a movie coasting on the fact it's "inspired by a true story," Skincare is the fictional account of a Hollywood beautician caught up in a series of scams perpetrated on her and plenty of errors of her own making. One could compare director Austin Peters, Sam Freilich, and Deering Regan's screenplay to the details of the real story upon which it's based, but since the filmmakers don't even bother to acknowledge anything about the real-life case, such an endeavor feels like a fool's errand.

The movie's plot isn't nearly compelling or strange enough to want to look into its inspiration, either, and that's probably the most obvious indictment of the material. It's all about the elaborate and allegedly odd nature of its plotting, and if that's not enough to elicit even some curiosity about the real story, something is wrong.

On the plus side, the movie does revolve around a nimble and dedicated performance from Elizabeth Banks, who plays Hope Goldman, an aesthetician to the famous and/or wealthy of Los Angeles' swankiest area. Hope has been in the business for a while now, serving an exclusive client list of models, actors, and well-to-do women. Her newest business venture is starting a line of skincare products with her name on them. They're expensive to make and distribute, because Hope only wants the best and has the various creams and such being manufactured in Italy.

The endeavor, though, has led Hope to a seemingly inevitable financial disaster. She can't pay the rent on her shop, resulting in her lying to her landlord (played by Jonh Billingsley) and ducking behind whatever she can find whenever the guy shows up to collect. Worse, there's the sudden appearance of some direct competition to her business in the person of Angel Vergara (Luis Gerardo Méndez), who opens a similar boutique right across the way from Hope's own.

It doesn't help that a local morning talk show dumps an interview they recorded with her in favor of one putting a spotlight on Angel. The co-host (played by Nathan Fillion) of the show is willing to broadcast Hope's interview later, although he wants a "favor" in exchange for it. She turns him down and cleverly records the conversation on her cellphone—or, at least, convinces the cad that she has.

Those are just some of the many complications and obstacles put in front of Hope. The major one is an email of mysterious origin that's sent from her account to shop's entire client list, complaining about money problems and a lack of sex. Hope is convinced she has been hacked, although that doesn't stop some clients from canceling appointments and heading to her neighbor for facial treatments. She's certain Angel is behind the sabotage.

Somehow, things get even worse for Hope and her business (Someone posts an ad online that amounts to an incitement to sexual violence), and Peters does create some degree of paranoia as the problems escalate. Much of that, though, is simply trusting Banks' skill as an actor. As the walls close in around Hope, the camera captures the despair and desperation in plenty of claustrophobic close-ups, and Banks balances a degree of sympathy for Hope, who has simply taken on more than she can handle and is clearly wronged by all sorts here, with the character's descent into bad decision-making based almost entirely on ego.

The character and, perhaps, the larger message of what it means to be a woman in business are lost, though, as the plot basically becomes a whodunnit with a limited number of suspects. There's Angel, of course, whom Hope starts stalking, and can she actually trust apparent allies such as Michaela Jaé (MJ) Rodriguez's assistant/publicist, who has access to all of Hope's accounts, or Lewis Pullman's Jordan, an aspiring life coach who swoops in to help his fellow entrepreneur? The sneakiest suggestion—in that it's logical up to a point and, also, isn't really explored too much—is that Hope is doing all of this herself—as a way to gain attention or maybe without even realizing it.

Whatever the answer is, the movie provides it a little too early, perhaps, diminishing the plot's suspicion-based momentum and introducing a new perspective that takes away from Hope's own. Ultimately, the revelation means the movie fully embraces the mechanics of complicated misunderstandings and terrible choices over anything to do with its characters or theme. Everyone starts to feel like a pawn in a game that's far too messy, both by intention and because the characters' motives for doing what they do here are overshadowed by the events themselves.

Banks does help to carry the material as far she can, and until the movie falls prey to its convoluted machinations, Skincare does serve as an intriguing character study about the challenges and perils of being a woman in business. Once it becomes more about the plot, the movie becomes much, much less.

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