First off, just above is a new poster (via Empire) for Jonathan Glazer‘s Under the Skin, starring Scarlett Johansson, which is due in theaters on April 4 from A24. The film centers on an alien in human form journeying through Scotland. I caught the film at the Toronto Film Festival last year, here’s the opening paragraph from my “C+” review:
As far as I can tell, the highly existential experiment known as Under the Skin is essentially a fish out of water story and the reaction of said fish and the school in which she’s trying to swim. In this case the “fish” is an extraterrestrial being and the “school” in which she swims is humanity as a whole, with humanity represented by the people of Scotland.
You can read my full review here.
Another film I caught in Toronto last year was Richard Ayoade‘s The Double, something of a Terry Gilliam-esque picture centered on a man (Jesse Eisenberg) with a bit of an identity crisis. It’s a film that seems to be polarizing those that have seen it and I am of the group that wasn’t all that impressed. Here’s a snippet from my “D+” review:
Richard Ayoade’s The Double is a Terry Gilliam-esque journey into the psyche of a man that has lost his sense of self. Twisted and strange, I couldn’t get into it in the slightest as it deals with a guy suffering from something of a psychotic breakdown as his life is slowly taken over by his doppelgänger. It’s all so obvious, the strange narrative and world Ayoade has created feels as if it’s weird for the sake of being weird, almost as a justification for why the film exists at all. I understand there are people that will fall head over heels for this kind of storytelling, that’s fine, I’m just not one of them.
You can read my full review here and check out a new international trailer for the film below. Magnolia will release The Double on May 9.
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