Mysterious Skin is more out-and-out disturbing than creepy, but it’s a worthy watch for anyone prepared to tackle challenging subject matter. Handling sexual molestation with dead-on directness, it follows the story of two young men whose lives have taken wildly different turns since they were both abused by their Little League coach: Neil (played superbly by a clearly stardom-bound Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a prostitute and reckless partier, whereas Brian is a quiet loner who becomes obsessed with alien abductions because he believes they hold the key to his repressed childhood. Mysterious Skin often surpassed my comfort threshold, and occasionally for reasons that didn’t seem completely necessary (the scene of childhood Neil shooting fireworks out of an intellectually disabled boy’s mouth is a good example), but this emotionally provoking story also achieves moments of sublime beauty.
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