“Skincare” is a striking and intriguing new thriller that scrutinizes the lucrative cosmetic industry and its unfair business practices. In this sturdy story, rivalry and manipulation reach self-destruction, jealousy, and even death in the most astonishing form that could only happen in Hollywood.
Her quest to find the online hackers who are trying to sabotage her life makes her go ballistic. “Beauty is a cutthroat business.”
In “Skincare,” Hope Goldman (Elizabeth Banks) sees her new neighbor, cosmetologist Angel Vergara (Luis Gerardo Méndez, “Belascoáran PI,” “Time Share,” and “We Are the Nobles/Nosotros los Nobles”), owner of the next-door spa salon, “Shimmer by Angel” a threat to her business. The successful and talented Mexican actor pulls together the strange antagonist character perfectly and serves as a decoy in this tangled story.
Hope’s story is inspiring, but competition is cruel in that kind of business. As the “Me Too” movement progressed, women became more confident in fighting back against the executives’ and talent’s predatory behaviors, as happened to Hope.
Success is not an accident. It would be best if she got out of that sticky situation. The key is in the “Professional” advice from her close friend and life coach, Jordan Weaver (Lewis Pullman), a frustrated actor who gives Hope a little piece of mind with his advice.
Australian director Austin Peters(“Give Me Future”) with “Skincare” made an engaging thriller by resolving all the characters’ storylines. Indeed, Mr. Peters, with an enormous amount of energy shown in the film, is able to bring out the best of each actor’s potential to transmit the right emotions to the audience.
In “Skincare,” Elizabeth Banks is brilliant in one of the best roles of her career.
Similar and fascinating stories brought to the big screen in recent years are Sofia Coppola’s celebrity teen thieves’ “Bling Ring,” Almodóvar’s obscure medical thriller, “La piel que habito.” Finally, Nicolas Winding Refn’s supermodels’ bloody feast allegory, “The Neon Demon.”
The recent LA Noir, Apple TV series “Sugar,” starring Colin Farrell and directed by Fernando Meirelles and Adam Arkin, brings a similar somber Hollywood atmosphere, representing its inhabitants stuck in somewhere Angelinos know as “La La Land.”
However, the female lead’s obsession with beauty became delusional in other influential leading ladies in film history, such as Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) in “Sunset Boulevard,” who wanted to come back to acting. Farrah Fawcett in “Extremities” trying to get out of a rape situation. Renée Zellweger, in “Nurse Betty,” really wants to play a nurse in a soap opera to be close to the lead actor. Nichole Kidman’s obsession with belonging to a TV show in “To Die For.” More recently, the Academy-winning Jessica Chastain in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” is obsessed with people’s attention, fame and fortune.
To be a stalker is not considered a syndrome yet but is linked to other afflictions that affect different areas of the human body: narcissism, egotism, psychosis, depression, anxiety, and vulnerability.
“Skincare,” the movie, is elusively based on a real-life beautician who was arrested for plotting the murder of a competitor. Hope Goldman is confident that she will prevail in her ordeal.
Despite the lack of story development for the supporting characters, Hope’s ordeal prevails for whatever her goal is: survival, anger, revenge, or redemption, not because untrustworthy people surround her. The fact that the neighbor opened a similar facility across from her venue is something she considers unfair business practices. Without thinking about the old saying: “the sun rises for everyone,” she continues her quest for revenge. Still, in the end, all the players in this story must pay for their infamous actions.
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