That hadn’t occurred to me, Wholly. I think it’s fitting with the themes and title of the movie if the issue was simply that her disguise didn’t have any inner workings. Which you’d think she would have known. Although I also find it hard to believe that she didn’t know about ejaculations. What the heck kind of operation are these aliens running?
-TomIt sorta fits with another aspect of the movie I liked, and maybe projected beyond where it applied.
There are exceptions (like the laughably unprepared aliens in Signs), but typically in sci-fi, the aliens are only “alien” to us, while they have a decent or even superior knowledge of humanity. Here, although they’re clearly predators, they’re not that powerful or maybe even that knowledgable about us. Obviously the lead is specifically exploring this in some ways eventually, but in general there was a sense that they were fragile and cautious, or even scared by humanity. They had figured out exactly what they needed to isolate and lure in individuals, which human motions they needed to mimic, but anything outside of those parameters was still risky or even unknown; we were still every bit as alien to them. Her panic early on when she gets swept into the club was awesome, and in the end when we see just how fragile they are physically, it reinforced that for me.
So not that the movie was explicitly pushing this, but it was easy for me to imagine that while they had learned to drive, obviously, perhaps they’d be confused and struggle if suddenly asked to ride a bicycle. Maybe a bad theoretical example, since I guess the guys did ride motorcycles, but that’s how I thought of them. So the idea that they’d learned to seduce, but without any real understanding of why it worked or a good understanding of sex, made sense to me.
Great points, Wholly, especially about their limitations and frailty. However, for me, it comes down to how the scene was shot. I would think if the implication was that she was alarmed at semen, Glazer would have shot it more explicitly. For instance, Johansson examining semen on her fingers. The fact that she needed a light and specifically concentrated on examining her vagina and not a substance makes me think the issue was more the plumbing than the, uh, issue.
Of course, I need to see this yet again.
-TomThere is that shot where she reaches down at the last moment, and there’s that quick shot of her hand down between the two of them, as I consider Wholly’s points. I hadn’t thought of that before. I thought previously it was just an issue of…um…docking that is normal when two people are together for the first time. But that reach down shot makes me think. Is she confused by anatomy? Or is something else going on?
Considering this is a harvesting operation, I have no problem with the aliens not getting or caring about the sexual mechanics of the species they are harvesting.
-xtien
I tweeted Tom to ask if I should rent Under the Skin or Enemy from the Redbox I was standing in front of, and he tweeted back! He is the coolest guy ever.
Damn I wish I could have seen this in the theater. Watching on a Macbook with the reflection of my t-shirt messing with all of the dark scenes made me so jealous of everyone who got the theater experience. When SJ stared at herself in the mirror, I practically threw out a rib trying to get a good look. Such amazing lighting throughout. The smoke curling up into the snow.
I’ve only jumped once while watching a movie before tonight. Got my second when the puffy guy in the liquid went squee. Now to listen to the podcast!
Oh, question: the last man to go in the drink ran naked back to his house. Did SJ look in the mirror and then, heart changed, go free him somehow?
Are you talking about the guy with neurofibromatosis? The guy she set free? Because he doesn’t make it after she sets him free.
-xtien
Right, but he’s seen running through a field, so she must set him free, but I don’t think that her setting him free was shown?
What we see is her backing up as he sinks into the room, as she has always done, but then stopping. There is intercut with the image of her other self, and then her at the mirror, I think trying to figure that out. Then a shot of the fly at the window. Then…I think there’s nothing before this…the door opening and her feet and his naked feet. The idea being that she’s let this fly go.
-xtien
She lets him go for sure, but the alien minder on a bike finds him and captures him again, sadly.
BTW, that bit with the deformed guy in the black room where there are shots of a metallic alien - is that supposed to be her as she is under the skin? or is it like a kind of “boss alien” she’s consulting or something? It’s one of the few unclear things in the movie for me.
Thanks! Spoilers:
Movies usually do not keep me up at night, but this one did. I kept thinking over:
How unforgivingly stark the movie is. The crying child on the beach, to whom SJ and the male paid no attention whatsoever. The husband swimming back out into the ocean. SJ clubbing the heroic swimmer with a rock. The poor man with no friends being caught and stuffed into his trunk.
When did you all realize that SJ was not human? I’ll just say it: for me, it was when she pulled off her skin and there was a black creature beneath it. I SHIT YOU NOT, that’s when I realized it. How do you get through the day when you watch movies with the intelligence of a puppy, you ask? This question keeps me up at night. When SJ didn’t even look over at the crying baby, how did I not know? I stayed up last night listing all of the clues.
And yes, I thought that the sexy black liquid scenes were some kind of metaphor and my puppy brain just lapped it up and said, “Oooh what else is coming?”
Also, hooray for male nudity! I’m not trying to be weird by saying so, but I think it’s great that nudity was just a thing and that it wasn’t relegated to the female form.
In retrospect I think it’s her, though I don’t think we knew that’s what any of them looked like at that point.
In the beginning, when she’s taking the clothes off the other woman there’s a shot of an ant on her hand. I kind of took that as a sign that the ant represents her position relative to people. She’s the ant, a lifeform as different to humans as the ant is to her.
Which is one of my plot/story problems with this movie, whether she’s human or not turns out to be irrelevant. You could do this movie and have her be some whacko cultist or serial killer or other human predator and very little would need to be changed. In previous posts there was discussion about how anatomically correct her disguise is but that’s a topic that makes no difference in the movie, it’s just something to talk about for the sake of discussion. Either way, she still can’t connect to others because her differences are deeper than the cosmetic.
I realized it when Kellywand spoiled it for me before I’d even seen the movie. “Uhhh, isn’t there a new movie where Scarlett Johansson plays an alien who hunts people?” Stoners, man.
-Tom
I’d argue it’s a crucial part of the movie because it’s the literal manifestation of what would otherwise be a metaphor.
-Tom
How did you not kill him.
How should I know if a movie is good or not before spending precious time watching it? So I listened to the Under The Skin podcast in advance… thanks, for spoiling it, but also thanks for letting people know how great a movie this is… I usually think movies cannot be spoiled by a good discussion… man, I wished I’d seen this one without knowing!!!
Also, hooray for male nudity
well nothing special, here in Europe. You should watch some of our movies sometime… some are good. If you want to see Martin Freemans prick, than you should watch “Nightwatching” as Rembrandt.
I really do want that.
I wasn’t so much “impressed” with the male nudity, as I was with the aroused male nudity… you just don’t get that in these here 'Mericas without navigating to porno sites.
If you want to see Martin Freemans prick, than you should watch “Nightwatching” as Rembrandt.
He was a giant prick in Fargo
Just watched it semi blind (heard bits and pieces about aliens and that’s it). The film itself is pretty ambiguous about WHAT exactly is SJ’s character. It is not obvious that she is some alien harvesting human. What is clear is that she (it) is pretending to be a woman preying on men, and that the motorbike guy(s) is the real brain behind her. At some point she goes rogue, and starts thinking she really IS a woman. Without knowing that it was adopted from a novel, SJ could well have been a men-preying android gone rogue, and the motorbike guys being Mr. Wolf working for the mad scientists that created the android.
Above all, it is an excellent horror film. The music, the plot (especially the beach scene), the beautiful/creepy Scotland landscape.