‘Skincare’ Review: Elizabeth Banks Shines in a Satirical Thriller That Isn’t Quite Ugly Enough

Reputation is everything, but even great first impressions can backfire. Take “Skincare,” an online harassment whodunit that never gets as ugly as its taut set-up suggests it might.

Known mostly for music videos, director Austin Peters makes his narrative feature debut for IFC Films in the niche world of luxury cosmetology. Set in Los Angeles circa 2013 — with the statement jewelry, high-low hemlines, and pop music to match — this psychosexual thriller invites audiences into the crumbling façade of boutique aesthetician Hope Goldman (Elizabeth Banks).

Hope is seemingly successful enough, beautiful enough, happy enough. But when a plan for a line of her own skincare products turns sour, the quietly fucked-up facialist finds herself in serious debt. After rival beautician Angel (Luis Gerardo Méndez) opens a competing storefront, an unseen foe starts harassing Hope online, pushing the already exhausted business owner that much closer to personal catastrophe.

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Skewering #GirlBoss culture is still entertaining in 2024, but the “Skincare” script is neither funny enough nor dark enough to stick out in a crowded subgenre. (Try Season 1, Episode 4 “The Outside” from Guillermo del Toro’s “Cabinet of Curiosities” — you might fare better.)

“Skincare,” co-written by Peters with Sam Freilich & Deering Regan, is a colorful exploration of dead-end American Dreams and the Hollywood It Girl image that lands closer to the “Bling Ring” than “The Neon Demon.” That’s not a bad thing, unless you’re expecting the hyper-feminine dissection to do more than it does. An oddly nauseating title sequence — zooming in on Hope’s patented beauty techniques while Queens of the Stone Age plays over flawless skin — promises a horror movie-like secret that just isn’t there. You’ll be spared gaslighting yourself, asking, “Is this girl just…nuts?” but won’t escape wondering, “Is that seriously… it?”

Hope’s troubles begin in earnest when she’s texted an ominous video of herself. She’s not doing anything of note, just coming home after a long day at work, but the seemingly innocuous clip sent from a blocked number cues up something worse. The next morning, Hope’s receptionist/assistant/PR manager Marine (Michaela Jaé Rodriguez) does her best to account for a bizarre email sent to almost 5,000 of Hope’s contacts. Filming a lifestyle segment with local talk show hosts Brett (Nathan Fillion) and Kylie (Julie Chang) just days before, Hope is this close to having it all…until the imposter paints her as depressed, lonely, and literally pleading for “a hard dick.” Friends, clients, and acquaintances gradually flee the scene of what looks like a mental breakdown — or, even more humiliating, a drunken ploy for attention.

For women like Hope, dangerous men always loom in Los Angeles. Here they’re ferreted out by the shocking revenge porn tactics that countless real people have experienced. Personal ads on some very 2013 message boards, which Hope didn’t place but bear her face and name, encourage strangers to violently “surprise” her at her business and home. Friendly mechanic Armen (Erik Palladino) and zippy 26-year-old life coach Jordan (Lewis Pullman) are the good guys in Hope’s periphery, but by the time they arrive to offer their help, everyone and everything already feels…off.

The sense that someone — anyone! — should just screw some sense into our helpless California girl gives “Skincare” its toxic center. That pulsing, putrid undercurrent could say something smart about society’s reaction to unmarried women. Instead, the plot swiftly sloughs off its strong start to embrace a directionless attempt at suspense that’s bland, bordering on boring.

The events described are sadistic enough, sexist enough, and upsetting enough (you don’t need gore or violence for a movie to be scary), but they build to a lackluster finale that feels emotionally shallow. Like countless ill-thought-out pretty-girl-meets-ugly-breakdown genre efforts before it, Peters’ debut seems intent on punishing a single woman for having goals. But “Skincare” never does explain that impulse to destroy Hope onscreen.

The “Skincare” aesthetic tries something different, although mostly to its detriment. The vivid shades once associated with millennial brands like BuzzFeed, and later repurposed ad infinitum for comedies like Hulu’s “Palm Springs,” are incongruent to the nightmare playing out in broad daylight. Theoretically, that sunshine-y quality could have become its own kind of thematic aggressor, but the temperature never gets cranked up past the point of discomfort; the tension goes slack in the second half.

As for Banks, she brings something new to the role, foregoing her “Pitch Perfect” bravado to instead deliver a semi-realistic portrayal of a wannabe on the brink. Unfortunately, the script never takes her anywhere of note and the actor spends much of the film looking like she’s in a cut scene from 2014’s “Walk of Shame.” Only a small sliver of this story feels like it was intended to be a horror-comedy, but punching up the satire would have at least given its star something more interesting to do.

Although its rife with problem areas, “Skincare” shouldn’t be dismissed wholesale. Director Peters shows promise in establishing his world and later finds a strong foothold in closely examining characters when they’re alone in their apartments. Pullman, an eventual love interest, and Méndez, that snide competitor, do especially good work when depicting the inner lives of the men in Hope’s noxious orbit. Engaging in some well-shot karaoke-for-one — belting Katy Perry and The Cure, respectively — Jordan and Angel help anchor Peters’ thesis by being imperfect themselves in private.

How we look from the outside versus how we are on the inside doesn’t always lineup, and that disparity can shake the visions we have of ourselves. The metaphor extends to “Skincare” itself as a film that looks bright on its face but ends up dull despite its best efforts and self-care.

Grade: C+

From IFC Films, “Skincare” is only in theaters August 16.

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