Under The Skin

In Jonathan Glazer’s Under The Skin, Scarlett Johansson plays an alien visitor who prowls the streets in a van, looking for men to seduce and kill. “It’s like Species meets Bangbus!” is exactly the sort of knee-jerk response this trailer is out to dispel—though the warm reception at Venice, Telluride, and Toronto has already helped—as it reaffirms that Glazer, in his first film since 2004’s Birth, remains quite adept at being really unsettling. Here he’s also aided by the element of surprise, as many of the reactions to Johansson’s blank-faced, bewigged performance were those of real, unsuspecting Scottish people, who were tricked into acting naturally by their belief that, sure, why wouldn’t Scarlett Johansson be trying to have sex with me; I’m Scottish, aren’t I? Oh, sweet, beautifully naïve Scotland.