Skin

There’s a prevailing sense of otherness in the establishing scenes of Audrey Rosenberg’s Skin. It could be any family dinner table dynamic with internalised struggles buried deep so as not to disturb the mundanity.

Charlie (Rhys Fehrenbacher) feels trapped in a body that doesn’t reflect who they are. Imprisoned by physiological design, Charlie is bullied and tormented for not fitting into the analogue imposition with the other teens in school.

Just at the point where the viewer may feel as though this is something they’ve seen a version of before, Rosenberg’s film briefly takes a turn for the otherworldly. What we are privy to is less body horror than body fascination as Charlie is given the opportunity to wear a new, more fitting skin.

The scene has a touch of the fantastical. Visually, it (briefly) reminded me of David McKean and Neil Gaiman’s MirrorMask and left me blindsided by the tender moments that were to follow.

The fractured family unit that bookends this short form feature seems to subtly evolve in a way that feels hopeful. While Skin may be guilty of falling back on overused narrative shorthand in places, it ventures into its own thought-provoking nook with an excellent central performance from Fehrenbacher.

Skin is the sort of film I wish we screened in schools as it conveys a considerable amount within such a meagre runtime. It is both thought-provoking and emotionally resonant in a way that should be readily available to teenagers and adults alike.

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