Lost Boys

Read no further if you don't want spoilers galore for Mysterious Skin.

The trailer for Mysterious Skin offers very little hint to the subject matter at hand. It seems to be about a teenager living in Kansas, who is missing five hours of his life. He remembers, as a little boy, that there were periods where he blacked out. The only thing he remembers is another little boy, and that becomes his link to the events that occurred ten years before.

I've seen two films by Gregg Araki: The Living End, about two gay friends, both with HIV, angry at the world, and The Doom Generation about two people, a male and a female, who pick up a third, and the ensuing road trip. These two films showed the indie roots of Araki. The storytelling was not clean nor polished, and ran more on emotional highs and lows than on a good story.

I haven't seen two of his other more well-noted films: Splendor and Nowhere, nor have I seen Totally F***ed Up. Mysterious Skin is his most assured film of the three. Based on a novel by Scott Heim, which opens up with the hook "The summer I was eight years old, five hours disappeared from my life", Araki tells the lives of four teens, in particular, paying attention to Neil and Brian, but also to Wendy and Eric.

Brian opens up the story, trying to recall what happened to his life, when he was about 8 years old. He's had problems relating to anyone, and comes across as a shy, nerdy kid. Once we see Neil's story, we know what has happened. Neil is the son of single mother, and plays baseball, because his mom's boyfriend doesn't want to pay for daycare. His athletic prowess makes him the star of the team, and his looks also make him a favorite of the coach.

Yes, this is a film about pedophilia. However, unlike most films (of which there are very few) about the subject, this one is from the vantage point of the children, after they've grown up. Coach has that Marlboro man look, with a moustache. He hangs out with Neil, and since Neil's mom seems to be frustrated with her own life, as she tries to find a man in her life, she's unaware of what Neil does. She's not shown to be completely irresponsible, and she does love her son. Yet, she's unaware of what he does for a living (hustle johns).

To take the coach completely out of the modern day is simply a great idea. Everyone believes the impact of pedophilia is most strongly felt with the victims, and the two victims: Neil and Brian feel the impact of an event that occurred ten years earlier, yet, both take a different route. Neil, who remembers the events of the day, is a gay hustler. He picks guys up at a playground, while his childhood friend Wendy looks on.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt takes on a challenging role, where he must play someone who's looking for something that he can't reclaim. He remembers when he was the only thing that mattered to coach, when he felt, at least to an 8 year old, true love. Everything since then has been an attempt to reconnect with his past, from his like of men with moustaches, to taking money from them, because Coach used to give him money when he did favors for him. His life as a prostitute is as much about reliving his youth as it is making money.

That life, as has been portrayed in other similar films, is not without its dangers, from abusive men to men with disease, Neil's life is transient. The only ones that care about him are his best friend Wendy and Eric, who's also gay, and has a thing for Neil.

Neil and Brian have left separate lives, until Brian seeks answers to the questions in his life. His answers come through Avalyn, who Brian sees on a show about alien abduction. Thinking she is a kindred spirit, he visits her. She's a bit of an invalid, with her one crutch, and almost sees Brian as someone who might share more than stories of abduction. Avalyn helps him to seek out the other boy in his dream.

At this point, Neil leaves Hutchinson, Kansas, and heads to New York where his friend Wendy now lives. He does in New York what he's always done, which is to meet men. Wendy warned Eric that Neil has no heart, and has instead, a bottomless pit, and it's all because he seeks something that he lost as a child. In the meanwhile, as Brian finally locates Neil's home (he only knows him as N. McCormack), he befriends Eric.

Now Eric looks a bit like Boy George. Eric has a streak of blond in his hair, and wears like seven earrings. Yet, Brian's mother is more concerned about the alien girl, Avalyn, then she is about gay Eric. Even so, Eric and Brian's relation is platonic (much as Eric and Neil's relation). Eric sends postcards to Neil telling him about this strange boy who thinks they were abducted by aliens.

If there's a small misstep in the film it's the end sequence. At some point, Brian must meet Neil, and must find the truth. Yet, as cathartic as this is for Brian, it doesn't work nearly as well for Neil. Brian doesn't seem to be the answer to his problems, though he can now point to this event in both their lives that they are both dealing with.

Araki puts his camera close up, showing actors in tight close-ups. The actors sound a bit Southern for Kansas, but that's something I can overlook. Levitt plays a tough role. He's nude in several scenes, and has to deal with many men that are less than savory. However, more challenging than that, he plays a character who is a bottomless pit, who has a tough time expressing his love, even as those around him do love him. Often, Wendy and Neil's mom make him promise to do something, and often he can't say he'll promise. He shakes his head, but can't utter the words.

There are even small bits that Levitt conveys, particularly, with wearing low-rise jeans and possibly going commando, that shows the kind of seduction he's subtly trying to convey to others.

Brian, played by Brady Corbet, is also very good, as the shy kid looking for answers. If you look photos of Corbet as he really looks, he's actually quite good looking. He looks like a better looking McCauley Culkin (though the comparisons are perhaps not fair given how creepy people think Culkin looks). It speaks to Corbet's acting to lose himself in this role.

The two kids playing the younger Brian and Neil are reasonably uncanny in their similarities to their older counterparts, even if you can tell that these are child actors, who end up overacting a bit.

Araki avoids making the parents too stereotypical. Brian's mom is more stereotypical, but she makes fun of Brian's obsession with alien life. Even so, she lets him believe what she wants, without relying on histrionics. Neil's mom, played by Elisabeth Shue, seems a bit young to be a mom, but I think that's intentional. Her life is a bit messed up, and yet she and Neil share a reasonably solid relationship. Araki hints there's possibly more to the relationship. In one scene, near the end, she cuddles up close to him, and in another, she walks into the men's room, but neither she nor he seem to care.

This is a difficult film for all involved, telling the story of the aftermath of a pedophile, and yet it's a far more effective way to tell this story. It's a touching story, with no real answers. Particularly brilliant is the closing location. While I found the use of explaining all that happened by Neil a bit heavyhanded, the fact that they break into the house that Coach used to live, and go visit the places that Brian and Neil shared as children is unbelievably powerful, and is an idea that's rarely exploited in films.

Brady and Joseph are to be commended for dealing with this subject matter. I go to films to see the edges of society. Cinematically, Araki films this much like Sam Mender filmed American Beauty. There is a dream like quality in the way scenes from the early 80s are filmed. It is structurally less complex than Beauty, but rawer in its emotions and subject matter.

It's the best movie I've seen on the topic, and perhaps the first or second best film I've seen this year (up with 3-iron).