Mysterious Skin is a 2005 film directed by American filmmaker Gregg Araki, who also wrote the screenplay based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Scott Heim. The film is Araki's eighth, premiering at the Venice Film Festival in 2004, although it was not more widely distributed until 2005. Mysterious Skin details the lives of two young boys who are sexually abused by their baseball coach.
In 1981 Kansas, eight-year-olds Neil McCormick (portraye...
more
Mysterious Skin is a 2005 film directed by American filmmaker Gregg Araki, who also wrote the screenplay based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Scott Heim. The film is Araki's eighth, premiering at the Venice Film Festival in 2004, although it was not more widely distributed until 2005. Mysterious Skin details the lives of two young boys who are sexually abused by their baseball coach.
In 1981 Kansas, eight-year-olds Neil McCormick (portrayed by Chase Ellison as a boy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as an adolescent) and Brian Lackey (George Webster and Brady Corbet) are sexually abused by their baseball coach (Bill Sage).
Neil, whose homosexuality manifested at an early age (he was preoccupied with male models depicted in his mother's Playgirl magazines), interprets the coach's abuse as an initiation into sexuality. He becomes sexually compulsive, particularly attracted to middle-aged men. Eventually, Neil drifts into petty crime and becomes a prostitute. Brian reacts to the abuse by...
less
