So many of the films that I really enjoy win me over with their dialogue. Whether it’s Quentin Tarantino’s expletive-laden, pop-culture referencing monologues (or Kevin Smith’s for that matter), or Joss Whedon’s trademark quippy banter, or the rat-a-tat back-and-forth of films written by Aaron Sorkin, so much of what draws me into a movie is how the characters speak. As much as film is a visual medium (and it’s worth noting that Sorkin and Whedon rose to prominence on television, which, to overgeneralize once more, is more of a writer’s medium), it’s also been the home of reams of classic dialogue which drives home story, character, or theme using the spoken word.
That’s why what stands out in Under the Skin, what makes it feel like such an ambitious and even avant garde film is how nigh-wordless it is. There is a bit of dialogue here and there: exchanges between the film’s protagonist and her unsuspecting victims, words offered from (almost exclusively male) strangers now and then, and sounds from television shows or ambient noise. But for most of the film’s running time, there is nothing said.
That puts pressure on director Jonathan Glazer to tell the film’s story in its visuals. Under the Skin traffics in the same other-worldly, deliberately explored images as 2001: A Space Odyssey. Glazer isn’t afraid to let the camera linger, whether it’s on the large zoom that makes up the first image in the film, or long takes that let these scenes breathe. There is a haunting serenity to this film, a sense that everything is calm but nothing is right, and the film’s aesthetic makes that come true.
The film is shot in a way that makes scenes like the protagonist stalking through a club or inveigling random strangers feel real, almost documentary, but that makes the scenes where these people are enveloped to their demise seem like some preternaturally clean and impossible space. It’s in that space where the film is at its most impressionistic and visually interesting, featuring a heartbreaking moment between two victims who find brief comfort in a pitch-black sea, before one of them is seamlessly gutted, his skin left to float beautifully in that abyss. The production design is impeccable, contrasting the difference between these two realms perfectly, and helping to convey the movie’s plot and ideas and emotion without ever having anyone explain them.
But even more of that pressure, and more of that success, falls on the shoulders of Scarlett Johansson. She, more than anything else in the movie, is called upon to tell its story, to communicate the feelings of her character who drives the piece, to show alternatively a practiced, almost scientific charm and an alien, unknowing curiosity and naiveté.
Johansson drifts effortlessly between the two. In the film’s early portions, she presents the perfect detachment, the sense of something conserving energy, not needing to present the social cues that human beings do, but just as quickly able to turn on those elements necessary to seem friendly, inviting, and kind.
But the true virtuosity of Johansson’s performance emerges after this dichotomy between motiveless creature and context-dependent venus flytrap is established, and the protagonist begins to discovery a glimpse of something approaching humanity, something that causes her to turn away from her programming. It’s an old cliché – the character who looks at themselves in the mirror and has a change of heart, but the understated nature of the way the film presents the story, and Johansson’s own subtle but powerful performance, makes the moment where she releases a disfigured man she’d previously lured and heads off on her own, a meaningful one.
It’s then that the protagonist begins to explore, with a childlike fear combined with curiosity, what our culture and society has to offer. She doesn’t speak, because she has no programming for these situations apart from the trap she was seemingly built for. That leaves Johansson expressing things like the bitter taste of chocolate cake, the quiet estimation and examination of her own body – what it has and lacks, and the shock of an assault, with only her expression, her body language, and her demeanor through each of these trials and discoveries.
The audience too, is offered no exposition, no bog-standard explanation of where the protagonist came from, who the men who seem to direct and follow her on motorcycles are, or that she is slowly discovering what it is to be a woman in our society. Glazer makes himself clear, but largely lets the audience fend for itself when it comes to anything but broad strokes. There are no details here, and none needed. It’s a choice that makes the film initially mystifying, in a way that can confuse and even unnerve the viewer, but that increases the power of the film, making the audience as unsure and tentative about what’s to come as the film’s protagonist is.
That protagonist endures a great deal over the course of the film. There’s commentary there, on how men treat women, by showing a woman who is a literal object, a tool programmed by (what at least appear to be) men to serve their purpose. There’s thematic resonance in that she is designed as a trap, as something to play on atavistic impulses to bring victims to be harvested for her programmers’ unstated purposes. But there’s also commentary in how she is treated when she slowly realizes that she is more than that, the way she is a stranger to the men (and again, it’s almost exclusively men), and is, despite her inability to speak, coddled, protected, taken in, made the object of sexual desire, and also of sexual assault.
It is, in the strangest sort of way, a deconstruction of The Little Mermaid, that doesn’t tip its hand thanks to the almost removed, judgmentless nature of Glazer’s camera, but which still speaks volumes thanks to the events that are presented, the scenes that show how this total innocent, who is unfamiliar with our culture, with much of anything about how men and women are supposed to interact, is treated despite, or perhaps because, of her almost total inability to have any say in it.
For so much depth, so much truth, to come through in a film where almost nothing is said is an achievement. Under the Skin is a film that catches you off guard, leaves you guessing, marveling at the images Glazer and Director of Photography Daniel Landin paint on the screen while you try to unravel what exactly you’re seeing. But when the pieces fall into place, buoyed by an incredible performance from Scarlett Johansson, so much is conveyed, so much is understood, that it’s amazing how little it takes to say it.
[9.8/10] One of the kindest things you can say about Better Call Saul is that it rarely feels like Breaking Bad anymore. Sure, there’s still stories that intersect with the cartel, and a prequel to the war between Gus and the Salamancas, and the time-honored practice of writing your characters into a corner and forcing themselves to figure a way out of it. But despite its roots, Better Call Saul has become its own thing, with its own voice, own world, and own style that’s connected to the story of Walter White, but distinct from it.
And yet, something about “Bagman” feels distinctively Breaking Bad-esque. Maybe it’s that Vince Gilligan is in the director’s chair. Maybe it’s so much time spent beneath the New Mexico sun. Maybe it’s the tale of an uncommonly common schmuck crossing paths with drug-runners and getting more than he bargained for. Whatever it is, stranding Saul and Mike in the desert wouldn’t feel out of place on Better Call Saul’s predecessor.
The sand-swept isolation calls to mind Walt and Jesse’s similar struggles in “4 Days Out.” The small scale personal story told within a larger moment makes “Bagman” feel strikingly like “Fly.” Hell, for folks whose prestige television memories run back twenty years ago, the episode has a whiff of Christopher and Paulie stuck in the Pine Barrens.
There’s a reason television shows, not just Breaking Bad, return to these sorts of stories of struggle and isolation and mutual survival. They give creators the chance to put characters through hell, challenges that they may or may not be prepared to face, and in those challenges, reveal them.
Because the episode reveals Saul Goodman. It humbles him. It both brings him down to one of his lowest points, his willingness to die and give up and fail in a way the crafty huckster never has before, only to build him back up when he’s reminded what’s at stake. This episode isn’t Jimmy McGill’s finest hour, but it may be Better Call Saul’s.
The setup for the episode comes from an off-hand comment in last week’s outing. Lalo needs seven million dollars to make bond and taps Saul to pick it up for him. There’s a logic there. The Cousins are too hot to avoid suspicion from the Salamancas’ competitors. Nacho is reliable, but Lalo correctly intuits that this kind of money would be enough to send him packing. Jimmy is too plain, too apart from these internecine squabbles, to arouse that kind of suspicion, so he’s nominated for the job.
He doesn't want it though. He knows it’s dangerous. He told Kim he wouldn’t do it. But he bargains his way to a hundred thousand dollar commission and can’t bear to turn that kind of money. Jimmy tries to break it to his wife gently, plying her with fajitas and old el paso (exotic!), except that Kim knows better. She is aghast. She practically demands that he back out. She all but pleads with him, please that Jimmy, naturally, ignores.
And why wouldn’t he? Saul Goodman is invinceable. He has never found a scrape or a tight spot that he couldn’t wriggle his way out of. He is, as he told Howard last week, a god. So why not ramble into the desert, take a pick-up from murderous crime bosses, and drive away crooning a bastardized version of “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall”? No fuss, no muss.
Until, of course, everything goes pear shaped.
The striking thing about “Bagman” is not just that this plan goes horribly wrong. It was practically destined to. Rivals, or simple opportunists, tipped off by a mole in a Salamanca safehouse, ambush Saul, there’s a firefight that leaves him cowering and in shock, until Mike saves the day. This isn’t the first exchange of gunfire on Better Call Saul or the first scheme that hit a major bump for Jimmy.
What stands out, though, is how ill-equipped he is to handle this. Normally Jimmy is the expert, the resourceful planner, who uses his silver tongue and conman instincts to work something out. Here, though, he has nothing to fall back on, nothing to do, but contemplate his own hubris. Bullet barrages are not his game. Survivalist treks through the desert are not his specialty. Saul is, in short, completely out of his depth, in a way we’ve never really seen before.
But Mike isn’t. Mike is very much in his element. One of the great features of episodes like this one is that forcing two people to work together like highlights the differences between them. Mike is, in his own way, just as talented and resourceful as Jimmy is. As his Private Investigator routine showed, he can even pull a con just like Saul can.
The difference is that Mike is tough. He is determined, with a background in special forces that makes him resilient in these circumstances. He came prepared for this in a way that Jimmy didn’t. He was ready for contingencies and failsafes that Jimmy wasn’t. And even he is tested and pushed to his limits. What does that leave for a softie like Jimmy McGill?
It leaves a man to be brought low by his failure to realize what he’s getting into. Gilligan uses the tricks of the camera not only to once again show us the scenic beauty of the New Mexico landscape, but to contrast this colorful shnook, at home in the circles where he operates, from the harsh environs he now finds himself wholly unprepared to deal with.
Gilligan shows The Cousins looming on either side of a close up of the back of Jimmy’s head, creating the image of intimidation. He gives us Mike and Saul wandering through a valley as the clouds sweep overhead, communicating how small they are in the far stretches of this place. He uses glow sticks to light their faces in different colors, providing high contrast so we see every weathered line. He puts the camera in the field of vision of a cactus, a shoe, or a hole in the ground, forcing us to look upon our heroes from unnatural angles, dwarfed by what’s around them. He highlights the unforgiving, if gorgeous, features of this arid deathtrap that threatens to tear down the seasoned vet and the hapless civilian in turn.
In the midst of that struggle, the show stealthily nods to little symbols, little pieces of who Jimmy and Mike have been and what led them to this moment, as so many of them end up either lost or just what the pair need in a given moment.
Mike saves Jimmy’s life with a sniper’s rifle, presumably the same one he bought to kill Hector in “Klick.” When he packs up what’s worth scavenging from Jimmy’s car, he takes the gas cap, likely having used it to track Jimmy just as Gus tracked him in “Mabel.” The Mike we see resolutely trudging his way through the desert is the product of so much, some things we’ve seen, and a great deal we haven’t, but those things have made him better able to face this moment.
Instead, Jimmy sees the things that have defined him slowly stripped away. His mismatched colored Suzuki Esteem ends up flipped into a ditch. The “Second Best Lawyer” mug Kim gifted him, one he’s desperate to hang onto, ends up with a bullet through it. He sweats through one of his colorful suits and strips it for protection against the penetrating rays of the sun. His perfectly manicured image and visage of self-assured confidence gives way to a blistered, sunburnt wretch, laid low and shown what he cannot simply bluff his way through.
But the ties to events past go beyond the tools that Mike and Saul lose or use in the process. There’s a brotherly vibe about the two of them together, Mike grumpily herding Jimmy along like a pestersome younger sibling he’s reluctantly responsible for. The glowsticks the two share while “camping” help set a mood, letting Gilligan up the contrast and show the weathered lines of each of these men’s faces. But it also conjures the image of Jimmy and Chuck as young boys, lit by a similar light in “Lantern”, and comparison that becomes all the more salient when Mike wraps himself up in a “space blanket” to save off the cold, something that Jimmy can’t bring himself to partake in for obvious reasons.
There’s a deeper connection there too, though neither of them fully knows it. Saul tells Mike that Kim will be worrying about him, and Mike is aghast that Saul let his wife in on what he’s up to here. Jimmy protests that Kim’s smart enough not to do anything rash (a faith Kim echoes to Lalo), but Mike just gives him an incredulous look. Mike tells Jimmy that he’s made Kim a part of the game now, something that Kim identifying herself to Lalo reinforces.
That’s scary for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that, for seasons now, Better Call Saul fans have been on pins and needles hoping that Kim survives. The fact that she’s implicated, even tangentially, that Lalo knows her by sight, makes her survival of the series that much more perilous. It’s scarier, though, because Mike knows full well that you can’t just be lightly involved and float above this kind of muck. He watched his son try to be in it without being a part of it, and saw where that leaves you and them. His skepticism is an admonition and a cosmic warning for Kim.
But when Jimmy’s latest shortcut has failed, when his effort to work smarter not harder has left him losing packs of hundred dollar bills, pulling spines out of his foot, and melting in the sun, it’s the thought of Kim’s well-being that keeps him going.
Mike gives him what can only become his signature speech of the series, about not caring whether he lives or dies, but choosing to go on because there’s people whose lives he wants to make better. Mike has been through some shit, crawled his way out of it, and had every reason to tap out on the other end. But he has Stacey and Kaylee, and he has been willing to dirty himself and fight through the muck, to keep them safe and supported. It is as clear a statement of purpose as we’re likely to get from the famously taciturn survivor.
Jimmy takes the critique to heart. Rather than hide or give up, he swallows his pride and wraps himself in the space blanket, gaining the attention of the criminals trying to hunt them down. This is not a slick con or a clever ruse. It’s a desperate ploy, one where Jimmy is willing to make himself bait, to put his life on the line, in the hopes that it will see him through this and get him back to Kim, hopefully with the money and wherewithal to make her life better too.
The sequence that follows is incredible. Despite knowing that both characters survive, Gilligan draws out the tension and terror as a car bears down on Jimmy and Mike lies in wait with his rifle. A missed shot, a swerving car, an upturned chassis, and a newly-determined foil-wrapped man who can’t even look at any of it, leads to the heart-pumping catharsis of an episode’s worth of character choices bound up in a rollicking climax.
In the end, Jimmy is willing to face his lowest moments, debase himself to make it through this, because Mike reminds him of whom he’s doing this for. He’ll swaddle himself in the shining memories of his dead brother to catch the gangsters’ eye. He’ll drink his own urine out of a water bottle branded with the law firm he swindled. He will make himself bait, the last resort of a man with nothing left to offer. And when it works, he will trudge on, having shed the niceties and pretensions and pride that made him think he was better than this, or capable of this.
The stock and trade of both Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad is change and self-realization. More than the arid trappings, more than the isolated chance for two characters to measure themselves against one another, that is what makes “Bagman” of a piece with our first televised journey to Albuquerque. Amid sand and blood and piss, Jimmy receives one last wake up call, one last chance to change his path, one last chance to remember who it’s worth making that choice for.
This is the definition of a great small flick and if you want a film that can have you in stitches in one scene and then make you feel sad in the next then you'll love it. The film revolves around two men who want to perform a series of robberies but the issue is they aren't very good at it and they are definitely not mentally stable enough to be doing them, literally that is the plot of the film and though simple it actually has some pretty good twists and turns.
Both Luke Wilson (Anthony Adams) and Owen Wilson (Dignan) were flawless in this film as you love these two characters and you just want to see them both happy though they keep making bad decisions, also I am a sucker for love and the relationship between Luke Wilson (Anthony Adams) / Lumi Cavazos (Inez) is lovely.
I couldn't give it a higher rating because the film wasn't long enough in my opinion and I can tell it was done on a tiny budget, but Wes Anderson really shows why he is one of the greats in this because with the little he had he made a film that I would say anyone can enjoy.
