Product Description

Studio: Strand Releasing Release Date: 03/24/2006 Rating: Nr

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5911 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-03-20
• Rating: NC-17
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Director's Cut, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 90 minutes

Amazon.com
Though the subject matter of Mysterious Skin is as sensational as that of Gregg Araki's other films (such as Totally F***ked Up, The Doom Generation, or The Living End), his direction is richer and more multilayered than ever before. Two Kansas teenagers named Neil (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 10 Things I Hate About You) and Brian (Brady Corbett, Thirteen) share a childhood trauma--but their responses are radically different: Neil hustles tricks, while Brady, who can't remember what happened, believes he was abducted by aliens and left with "missing time." As both try to make sense of their lives and Brian struggles to find out the truth, Mysterious Skin builds to an emotional pitch that some viewers will find uncomfortable and others will find liberating. The characters of Neil and Brian have a fullness that lifts Mysterious Skin above most examinations of sexual abuse and trauma. Gordon-Levitt has been deservedly praised by the critics, but the entire cast--which also includes Bill Sage (Simple Men), Elizabeth Shue (Leaving Las Vegas), Michelle Trachtenberg (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and Mary Lynn Rajskub (24)--turns in superb performances. A striking and powerful movie. --Bret Fetzer

From The New Yorker
The director Gregg Araki's film, based on the sensational (in every sense of the word) novel by Scott Heim, retains the lo-fi road-movie atmosphere of his previous works ("The Living End," "The Doom Generation"), but there's a heartening maturity this time around. The story concerns an adolescent hustler (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who's haunted by child abuse, and his former Little League teammate (Brady Corbet), who's attempting to find an answer to the amnesia he suffers when trying to recall a past incident. The actors capture the sad yearning of the characters, and Michelle Trachtenberg and Elisabeth Shue give strong supporting performances. Although this is Araki's best work, the film is finally too dreamy to dramatize the urgent storytelling of the novel. It drifts with an on-the-road aimlessness, losing its initial sexy, dark power. -Bruce Diones
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker