Rarely are we given a chance to see true evil change for the better. I don't mean just villainous characters in stories who "see the error of their ways" and are punished, and I don't mean the recent surge of antihero-centered films and shows. I can't think of many other films than last year's Skin that show more clearly that genuine, life-altering change is a tough choice to make, but one that can save lives. And in an era when Nazis and Klansmen are taking to the streets again, few stories are more timely or important than those that reveal the nature of this evil and how we can fight it.
Here we become witness to the real-life story of Bryon Widner (played by a brilliant Jamie Bell), an ex-white-power-skinhead. The main thrust of the story depicts Widner's life in Indiana as a backwoods, almost punk-goth member of a fringe organization devoted to worshipping whiteness. Early, we see his parents (Vera Farmiga and Bill Camp) leading a quasi-religious group of these neo-Nazis in praising their Norse gods and planning to claim a seat in government. They want, explicitly, to "just make them leave," referring to black people and Asians and other minorities they use different words for. It's a chilling scene, especially with the "send her back" chants we heard this year at Trump's rallies still ringing in our ears.
Widner becomes somewhat disillusioned with his gang, but this is where the film is especially interesting. The screenplay and direction never allow the story to enter familiar territory. It's shot mostly handheld with special attention to the grunge and grit of real life. Never sentimental, it churns on from disturbing scene to disturbing scene, not really even allowing us the opportunity to like Widner. Probably because he's just not a good person. We don't need to believe there is a nugget of humanity in there, because really there isn't at this point. When, however, he meets a nice ex-Nazi girl (Danielle Macdonald) and her kids, love for them begins to mobilize his desire to change. This could be a nasty, sickly sweet portrayal of the transformative power of love, but thankfully the film has too much on its mind for that.
American History X this is not. We aren't really allowed into Widner's head, to understand better how and why he changes, or even how and why he was a white supremacist in the first place. That seems to be largely rooted in his brainwashed upbringing, as Widner's parents are essentially cult leaders who emotionally manipulate their flock, inciting violence and paranoia and indignation. And while his desire to change becomes clear, it's never felt. Jamie Bell is almost unrecognizable here, and his performance is muscular and brutal, perhaps nowhere more so than in the shocking tenderness and affection he shows to the young girls who have entered his life.
And while the title may make you think of the film's anticipated morals regarding the colors of one's skin versus the color of one's soul, it most concretely concerns Widner's heavily tattooed skin, which flash-forwards show us he gets surgically removed in excruciatingly painful operations over the course of 18 months. It's a beautiful and agonizing play on the Romantic notion that inherent evil manifests itself in nature, and the pains to which we might go to alter that. It also reveals a fascinating irony in that someone who so loved his own white skin would cover so much of it with dark pigmentation and scarring. So while the film doesn't quite fully flesh out its characters and give us "answers", I'm not sure there really are any satisfactory answers as to why certain kinds of people can be so evil. Skin instead gives us a complex real-life story to consider from a refreshingly antisentimental perspective.
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