Review: ‘Skincare,’ starring Elizabeth Banks

September 15, 2024

by Carla Hay

Elizabeth Banks and Lewis Pullman in “Skincare” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“Skincare”

Directed by Elizabeth Banks

Culture Representation: Taking place in Los Angeles, the comedy/drama film “Skincare” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An esthetician’s life spirals out of control after she is targeted by a mysterious harasser who seems to want to put her out of business.

Culture Audience: “Skincare” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of star Elizabeth Banks and dark satires about blind ambition.

Luis Gerardo Méndez in “Skincare” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“Skincare” is more of a dark comedy about ambition than a mystery thriller about harassment. Elizabeth Banks carries this uneven but interesting movie with her performance as an increasingly unhinged esthetician. “Skincare” is best appreciated if viewers don’t have expectations that it’s a horror movie.

Directed by Austin Peters, “Skincare” was co-written by Peters, Sam Freilich and Deering Regans. It might have been better off as short film, because the plot is very simple, and the middle section of the film tends to drag with repetition. The movie, which takes place and was filmed in Los Angeles, has some biting commentary on the fickleness of celebrity worship culture, but it doesn’t bite hard enough. “Skincare” is loosely based on the real-life case of Los Angeles-area aesthetician Dawn DaLuise, who was accused in 2014 of a murder-for-hire plot against a rival.

“Skincare” begins by showing esthetician Hope Goldman (played by Banks) in a TV studio dressing room, as she’s about to get ready for a interview that will be recorded for a talk show called “The Brett & Kylie Show,” hosted by sleazy Brett Wright (played by Nathan Fillion) and perky Kylie Curson (played by Julie Chang). Hope is doing her own makeup, which is the first sign that she’s probably an image-obsessed control freak. It’s likely she refused to have the show’s makeup artist do Hope’s makeup because Hope wants to prove she’s the best skincare expert.

Hope is the owner of Hope Goldman Skincare, which has some celebrity clients, including a starlet named Jessica (played by Ella Balinska), whom Hope considers to be one of her most important customers. Hope is doing this TV interview mainly to promote a new Hope Goldman Skincare product line that’s she launching in the near future. Hope brags that her high-end products are made in Italy. In the interview, she says: “I took everything I learned from 20 years in this business and bottled it.”

Hope (who is a bachelorette with no children) might appear to be successful and living out her dreams, but behind the scenes, her life is kind of a mess. She’s overdue on her rent at the small boutique-styled space that she uses for her skincare business. And her new skincare product business has been costing her money that she can’t afford. As she explains to her landlord Jeff (played by John Billingsley), when he mildly scolds her for not paying her overdue rent: Hope’s chief investor has suddenly disappeared, and she’s had to pay for the expenses that the investor was supposed to cover, but she promises Jeff she will pay the rent in the coming days.

Hope has only one employee who is shown in the movie. Her name is Marine (played Michaela Jaé Rodriguez), who has various duties, including being a receptionist, administrative assistant and public relations manager. It’s one of the noticeable flaws in “Skincare” that Hope’s employee situation looks unrealistic. Anyone launching this type of skincare business on such a wide scale would have more than one employee. Marine is competent, hard-working and very loyal to Hope. Marine also seems to be the closest thing that loner Hope has to being a friend.

One day, Hope finds out that another esthetician has opened a business across the street from her business. Jeff is also the landlord for that retail space. Hope’s new rival is Angel Vergara (played by Luis Gerardo Méndez), the ambitious owner of Shimmer by Angel, which has a flashier and trendier aesthetic than Hope Goldman Skincare. At first, Hope is cordial to Angel because she thinks that they have different clientele. But their competition becomes bitter when Angel tells her not to park in the space that’s reserved for his customers, and Jessica ends up becoming Angel’s customer.

Hope complains to Jeff about Angel and asks Jeff to evict him, but Jeff’s business-minded response is that he doesn’t evict tenants who pay their rent on time. To make matters worse for Hope, someone hacked into Hope’s email database and sent an embarrassing message from her email address to her nearly 5,000 email contacts. The messages had a rambling confession saying that Hope is lonely, horny, and financially broke. Some the recipients of this message are Hope’s clients, who cancel appointments with her because they now think that she’s mentally ill.

Hope is convinced that Angel is responsible for the hacking, even though she has no proof. She is also getting harassing phone calls where the caller breathes heavily and then hangs up. Hope thinks Angel is also the cause of this phone harassment because he’s the only person she can think of who would have a motive to sabotage her business. It sets her on a path to stop the harassment by any means necessary.

The fake email message goes viral and damages Hope’s reputation. As a result, her prerecorded interview on “The Brett & Kylie Show” gets cancelled. And what a coincidence: “The Brett & Kylie Show” replaces Hope’s interview with an interview that the show did with Angel. A tire on Hope’s car is later slashed.

While all of this turmoil is going on, Hope meets Jordan Weaver (played by Lewis Pullman), a 26-year-old who has recently moved to Los Angeles. Jordan is having a casual fling with elderly and affluent Colleen (played by Wendie Malick), one of Hope’s customers. Colleen, who is old enough to be Jordan’s grandmother, is the one who introduces Jordan to Hope. Jordan says he’s an aspiring actor, but in the meantime, he’s a “life coach” who teaches martial arts and spiritual healing.

Jordan and Hope eventually become friendly with each other, in the way that people become close when they think they can use each other for personal benefits. Angel’s business starts to experience even more success as Hope’s business goes on a steep decline, which enrages Hope and fuels her jealous quest to get revenge before her skincare product line officially launches. There’s a shady character named Armen (played by Erik Palladino) who comes into the picture and has a pivotal role in the story.

The plot of “Skincare” goes off into some tangents that could have been explored better but are just left to dangle without any meaningful follow-up. For example, there’s a scene where Brett (who is married but tells Hope that he’s on the brink of divorce) makes sexual advances on Hope after the “Brett & Kylie Show” cancelled her interview to be televised. Brett hints that he could put her back on his TV show if she gives him what he wants sexually.

Hope handles this sexual harassment in an astute way, but there’s really no purpose to this scene except to show that Brett is corrupt, and Hope has ways to get out of this type of tricky situation. It also seems odd that the movie makes it look like “The Brett & Kylie Show” is the only possible TV show that would be interested in interviewing Hope, before her scandal happened. Brett ends up being a character who is barely in the movie, which gives the impression that perhaps there were more scenes in the film that didn’t make the final cut.

This sexual harassment scene seems to be part of the movie’s larger commentary on the shallowness of transactional “quid pro quo” relationships, particularly in a celebrity-oriented city such as Los Angeles. A recurring “joke” in the movie is that Hope offers free samples of her skincare products as a way to ingratiate herself to people whom she thinks can do her favors later on. Hope also chases fame for herself just as much as some of the celebrities whom she wants as clients.

“Skincare” might leave some viewers confused about the intended tone of the film. The movie starts off looking like a drama but then it becomes more darkly comical as it goes along. Some of the characters seem more like caricatures the more time that they spend on screen. Thanks to Banks’ “go for broke” performance, “Skincare” blurs the lines between victims and villains, which will make some viewers more uncomfortable than others.

IFC Films released “Skincare” in U.S. cinemas on August 16, 2024.

Review: ‘The Shift’ (2023), starring Kristoffer Polaha, Neal McDonough, Elizabeth Tabish, Rose Reid, John Billingsley, Paras Patel, Jordan Alexandra and Sean Astin

December 7, 2023

by Carla Hay

Neal McDonough and Kristoffer Polaha in “The Shift” (Photo courtesy of Angel Studios)

“The Shift” (2023)

Directed by Brock Heasley

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the dramatic film “The Shift” (loosely based on the Book of Job) features a cast of predominantly white characters (with some African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A man gets “shifted” to a multiverse, where he desperately tries to find a way back to his wife. 

Culture Audience: “The Shift” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in movies that blend religion and science fiction, but “The Shift” has too much of a muddled plot to be enjoyable for viewers who want a coherent story.

Elizabeth Tabish in “The Shift” (Photo courtesy of Angel Studios)

“The Shift” wants desperately to be a clever mix of sci-fi and faith-based teachings, but the end results are jumbled and messy. This disappointing drama taking place in a multiverse has too many poorly written scenes and characters without much depth. The stiff and awkward acting performances in the movie do nothing to help improve the quality of this dull and incoherent film.

Written and directed by Brock Heasley, “The Shift” is loosely based on the Book of Job, from the Hebrew Bible. In the Book of Job, the story’s namesake Job is a wealthy man with a loving family. Satan tells God that Job will lose his faith in God if Job loses everything that’s meaningful in Job’s life. God allows Satan to test this theory, so Satan takes away Job’s money and family.

In “The Shift” (which takes place in an unnamed part of the United States), the Job figure is Kevin Garner (played by Kristoffer Polaha), who is seemingly affluent and happily married to his wife Molly Garner (played by Elizabeth Tabish). One morning, Kevin and Molly have an argument about bills that Kevin said he was going to pay, but Kevin lied and didn’t pay the bills. Kevin is upset when he gets in his car and has a car accident.

A dazed and confused Kevin wakes up on a deserted street and sees a man who calls himself The Benefactor (played by Neal McDonough, in yet another role as a cold and calculating villain), who tells Kevin that there was no car accident. The Benefactor doesn’t bother to explain to Kevin why Kevin has injuries on his face from the accident. It’s one of many confounding inconsistencies in this movie.

Kevin grabs The Benefactor by the lapels and demands, “Where did everybody go?” The Benefactor replies, “They didn’t go anywhere. You did. Are you sure you are where you think you are? Let’s get some dinner.” Kevin willingly follows The Benefactor.

Kevin and The Benefactor go to a diner, where this mysterious stranger seems to be a frequent customer, because the waitress (played by Ginger Cressman) already knows what he likes to order: steak and eggs with a tall glass of milk. Customers in the diner seem to know who The Benefactor is too, because they cower in fear when he’s in the room and are afraid to look at him.

During this uncomfortable conversation in the diner, The Benefactor tells Kevin that he has “shifted” Kevin to another dimension and says he has the ability to do this anyone. The Benefactor also says that several dimensions exist in this multiverse. Kevin doesn’t believe The Benefactor and tells him to prove it.

The Benefactor points out a terrified-looking woman in the diner. He says her name is Tina (played by Rose Reid), and he says he’s going to shift Tina to another dimension where Tina doesn’t exist. And sure enough, The Benefactor does that, much to Kevin’s shock.

Now that Kevin knows that he’s in another dimension where he can’t get back to Molly, he is given an offer by The Benefactor, who knows that Kevin and Molly had an argument that morning: “I can give you a Molly who’ll be exactly who you want,” The Benefactor tells Kevin. In exchange, The Benefactor says that all Kevin has to do is work with The Benefactor as one of The Benefactor’s shifters.

Kevin refuses this offer and starts praying out loud. The Benefactor becomes enraged and then literally vanishes. Even if viewers of The Shift don’t know anything about the Book of Job, it’s easy to see how the rest of this “good versus evil” story is going to go.

For most of “The Shift,” Kevin is a poor and homeless person who desperately tries to find his way back to Molly. Kevin is in an alternate world where The Benefactor’s disappearance from the diner has made the TV news. Kevin has become famous and is now known in the news as The Kevin Who Refused.

This notoriety has made Kevin somewhat of a fugitive. He finds himself scrounging around for food on the streets. And somehow, he ends up working at a rubble-filled construction site, where he meets a man named Gabriel (played by Sean Astin), who gives helpful advice to Kevin. Some mysterious soldier types call lancers, who have metal uniforms, helmets covering their faces and carrying guns. The lancers occasionally show up to try to capture Kevin, but he manages to escape.

There’s a dark and dingy movie theater that has been converted to a place where people can pay to see what’s going on in other dimensions. In “The Shift,” this multiverse dimension-watching is set up to look like a candle-lit room, where someone can wear a virtual reality headset while looking at a giant projection screen. Even though “The Shift” is a low-budget film, there is still absolutely no imagination in this movie’s production design.

It isn’t long before Kevin finds out about this theater and goes there to get clues on where Molly might be. The owner of this theater is named Russo (played by John Billingsley), who gets increasingly annoyed every time Kevin shows up. Kevin also meets a married couple named Rajit Nadir (played by Paras Patel) and Priya Nadir (played by Jordan Alexandra), who generously invite Kevin to stay with them in their family home.

“The Shift” continuously bungles the story by introducing new characters and then not giving them much to do or much purpose. The movie seems intent on having a lot of religious symbolism without meaningful explanation, and so this symbolism ends becoming a lot of clutter to the plot. It’s like giving someone a puzzle to solve with clues that are ultimately useless.

It should come as no surprise (because it’s already shown in the trailers for “The Shift”) that Kevin sees Molly living a very different life in another dimension. Because Kevin has been “shifted,” he no longer exists in the dimension where he used to live. The movie becomes a chaotic mush of Kevin trying to figure out how to get the dimension where Molly is. Viewers of “The Shift” will feel like they’re stuck in a dimension where this terrible and boring movie exists, and they can’t get their time back after watching “The Shift.”

Angel Studios released “The Shift” in U.S. cinemas on December 1, 2023.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fozskMtdwI8

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