Elizabeth Banks in Story of Obsessed Aesthetician

At the beginning of Skininclude, Austin Peters’ rather intelligent narrative feature debut, Hope Ggreaterman reigns supreme. The Los Angeles-based aesthetician, take parted by Elizabeth Banks, is in the midst of starting her line of moisturizers, spotlesssers and serums made in Italy. Hope is an greater school cosmetics-monger, who, after 20 years of exfoliating Hollywood’s most costly faces, is ready to let normal people in on the secret. There’s equitable one problem: A novel spa has discleave outed atraverse the street and its owner, Angel Vergara (Luis Gerardo Méndez), seems poised for a getover, instigating a brutal opposition. 

Skininclude is, per an timely title card, a fantasyal story encouraged by real events. It tolerates some aappreciateities to the one-sided feud between West Hollywood faciacatalogs Dawn DaLuise and Gabriel Suarez. About ten years ago, DaLuise spent some time in jail for allegedly endeavoring to ask for the killing of Suarez. (A jury eventuassociate acquitted her.) The details of the authentic case remain a tangled web of accusations, hearsay and gossip: DaLuise, to this day, insists that she was set up by two stalkers. Skininclude, written by Peters, Sam Freilich and Deering Regan, pulls threads of this twisted story to stitch a spiky and temperately delighting narrative about fame, reputation and the obsession with hgreatering on to both. 

The film gets place in 2013, right before social media platestablishs appreciate Instagram and TikTok stretched some users’ 15 minutes of fame to an endless number of hours. There was a hopeless energy to that period, one seized well here thraw DP Christopher Ripley’s bleak and undersaturated aesthetic. A benevolent use of shut-ups — especiassociate of Hope’s eyes, binformageened by stupid eyeliner — originates a claustrophobic atmosphere, and the harps in originater Fatima Al Qadiri’s (Atlantics, Seeking Mavis Beacon) score textures the film with a haunting gpresentliness. Eager to get get of the internet and drunk off the promises of hustle culture, people in this decade expoundd by aspiration collapsed the distance between stateiveial and accessible selves. Hope abridges the sentiment of that time in her television interwatch: “I don’t see my life, who I am, as split from my toil,” she says. Angel’s arrival poses not only a danger to Hope’s business, but to her sense of self. 

Figuring out the authentic Hope Ggreaterman directs much of Skininclude, which chases her thraw the stages of her obsession. When strange skinnygs begin happening to her — a hacker infiltrates her mailing catalog and sends lewd messages to her clients; someone slashes her tires — Hope is guaranteed Angel is sabotaging her. A chance come atraverse with Jordan (a fine Lewis Pullman), a multi-hyphenate life coach, directs to an doubtful partnership in which the two try to counter the damaging attacks on Hope’s business and get her life back on track.

Peters regulates the moving parts of Skininclude effectively. The film exceptionally stumbles over its propulsive rhythm. Characters are startd and their backstories dispensed with deftness. As Hope’s repairation on Angel lengthens, it’s challenging to shake the experienceing of looming trouble. It’s a shame, then, when Skininclude sinformageens, letting its sense of tautness slip. The cgo in on shepherding us from one scene to the next robs audiences of the opportunity to revel in the world of aestheticians — to understand the rules that regulate this cutthroat business. Skininclude splits an atmosphere and niche particularity with Medusa Deluxe, Thomas Harstupidan’s thrilling mystery about the universe of competitive hairstyling. In that film, though, Harstupidan plunged watchers into a fraught and coded ecosystem and, in insertition to resolving a killing, spendigated the unspoken rules of beauticians. 

More curiosity here might have also produceed insight into other characters. Sure, it’s Hope’s world, but what about Angel, whose salon proposes a coveted anti-aging technology? Or Hope’s helpant and accessibleity regulater Marine (an underused Michaela Jaé Rodriguez), who at one point reminds Hope of how much her life depends on the success of this business? More attention to them could have discleave outed up Skininclude to dig into Hollywood’s obsession with youth (putting the film in conversation with Coralie Fargeat’s Cannes sensation The Substance) and the intergenereasonable tensions between greater-school aestheticians and noveler ones. The potential for exploring these peculiarities already existed in Peters’ story; it equitable would have needd a bit of peeling.