Mysterious Skin * Directed by means of Gregg Araki * Written through Araki.

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Mysterious Skin * Directed by means of Gregg Araki * Written through Araki, based on the novel by dint of Scott Heim * Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brady Corbet, Elisabeth Shue * Tartan Films/TLA Releasing

In Mysterious Skin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt gives a career-making performance that should catapult the former TV child star (3rd strength From the Sun) to leading-man status--a leap akin to the single in kind Leonardo DiCaprio made with What's Eating Gilbert Grape, barely without the crutch of playing someone who's lovably retarded.

[i]de novo[/i] from his role as a Mormon homophobe in Latter Days, Gordon-Levitt plays Neil, a gay teen in a small Midwestern town. Nell put up to sales himself to older men at the local park--a public occurrence never so matter-of-factly existinged on film. His life's been massed up since he was 8 when a baseball coach made Nell his sex toy, beginning with a forced sex act onward a kitchen floor covered with Froot nooses With his deep eyed glare and abrupt, determined motions Gordon-Levitt makes it clear that Nell is no helpless victim--in his screwed-up fashion, he believes promiscuity gives him control

When he inclines to New York, however, it's no trick in the park. The city's seamy side overpowers him, and Nell slips into a self-destructive nosedive. At that point Gordon-Levitt's hard shell cracks, and the violence and anguish that the young man and the film have drawn out held back come spilling not at home in a blisteringly painful sequence

Parallel to Neil's story is that of asexual nerd Brian (Brady Corbet), another hurted teen, who believes "lost time" from his childhood can be explained by dint of an alien abduction--an obsession that has taken across his life the way sex dominions Neil's. It's clear throughout the film that formerly these two find one another, all their defensive fantasies will be swept away. That final catharsis--with just a hint that healing will begin--is devastatingly powerful.

Beautifully photographed and tightly written, Mysterious Skin is as often a coup for writer-director Gregg Araki as for Gordon-Levitt. It's more gritty and literal than the hauntingly lyrical Scott Helm novel forward which it's based, but the considerable compression benefits the difficult material well. In fact, it's in such a manner well-crafted--with the kind of rich characterizations and mature storytelling that Araki's vigorous early films (The Living cessation The Doom Generation) mocked rather than aspired to--that it should make open up a world of opportunities for its auteur. Araki has made a stir similar to the one Gus Van Sant made with To Die For--without, undivided hopes, the prospect of a Psycho remake in his future

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