The horrors of Hollywood keep on giving: last year, this year, no doubt next year, and so on. Skincare (2024) is another film which bases its storyline in the beauty industry, and all in all, it’s an engaging horror-adjacent tale, even if on some levels it struggles to settle on a genre.
We start at almost-the-end, as many films do, taking a gamble on how successfully they can fill in the intervening plot points. A woman, Hope Goldman (Elizabeth Banks) is adjusting her make-up at a mirror as the sound of sirens wails outside; we get the distinct impression they might be there for her. Scoot back two weeks, and we meet her again, about to be interviewed on TV about her brand new beauty range. Hope Goldman Skincare is clearly a labour of love for its founder, after a long and ostensibly successful career as a beautician (she still can’t, or won’t pay her rent). But it’s time to take the next step, and things are looking good – that is, until a competitor opens shop directly opposite Hope’s salon.
Hope goes to investigate Shimmer, which belongs to a man called Angel (Luis Gerardo Méndez), but it’s a passive aggressive introduction which leads to Hope taking back the gift she initially hands over to her new neighbour. She’s rattled, and this could not have come at a worse time for her. The more we get to know about Hope, the more we see that she’s a rather mercenary woman, even if we can forgive her this in such a highly competitive business and location, one which would readily chew her up and spit her out given an opportunity. So when someone starts to try to intimidate Hope with a campaign of brand-wrecking online abuse, it’s genuinely alarming and infuriating, especially as it’s so unimaginatively all about her gender. Of course whoever-it-is is going after her by trying to paint her as a horny, frustrated woman, but doing this by creating false dating profiles for her, deepfaking her and setting her up for some frightening encounters. The obvious suspect is Angel; the timing is just so sketchy. However, honestly, lots of the people around her seem just as sketchy, and surprisingly keen to reveal new, appalling layers to their characters when she comes to them for help. Everything is transactional here.
Hope is tough and wants to fight for her brand and her good name – but she’s still open to help, looking to those around her to fight her corner. As, by this point, you will find yourself doubting everyone in her orbit, this makes the film an often uncomfortable watch, one which has paranoia written right through it. Banks is great throughout, moving from a hard-won sense of superiority to increasingly, and understandably, unhinged behaviour. Her competitive streak wants to blame Angel; there are other potential aggressors, and we see it before she does. Men are getting an intensely bad rap in cinema of late and this film is, on the whole, no different, although its men are not just simplistic monsters (even if some have pretty monstrous traits). Interestingly, the nicer and more reasonable the guy, the worse his treatment. This is, at its core, a rather dark and nasty film, albeit one which feels it can step away from its summative nastiness for a few moments of light relief. There is a dark sense of humour at play here, which not only feels like a big contrast from such a colourful film, but can also jar slightly, given some of the developments we witness. Some of the laughs are uncomfortable. However, there’s no languishing in either the horror or the comedy long enough to really begin to flounder, as the film knows well enough to march things on at a decent and suitable pace, centring Hope, but introducing a solid array of both likeable and unlikeable characters.
Skincare always feels strangely horror-adjacent, which is odd, as there’s no fantasy or supernatural elements here: perhaps part of this is because Banks last collaborated with co-star Nathan Fillion on Slither in 2006, which is much more clearly a horror movie, or perhaps it’s the unflinching close-ups, the glistening red face masks, or the 80s-neo colours. Or – much more likely – it’s because The Substance is casting such a long shadow this year, so that Skincare‘s own use of candy colours, macros and dark-edged femininity feel very familiar, especially given the focus on beauty and celebrity – in the same city, no less. Hope Goldman and Elisabeth Sparkle could be neighbours, and could each do without calling the number on business cards they find in their possession. But Skincare decides against fantasy to instead play out a much nastier, more realistic story of sexual threat and conspiracy.
Given its vivid, almost breezy forward motion at times, its more traumatic content raises some questions. Is this an ordeal? Or a satire on LA life? The net result is a sickly, disconcerting feeling, from a film which does a lot and attempts a lot before we get there, and it may feel too strained for some audiences. It’s brutal. However, for me, it ultimately does what it sets out to do with its backdrop of a weird, aspirational, cutthroat world and a great array of committed performances. There’s more than enough there to like.