Scarlett Johansson surprises Under the Skin

We all knew it would come to this. Artificial intelligences, superheroes and now aliens from beyond the stars? Perhaps Scarlett Johansson has simply superseded portraying regular old people in favor of the wholly digital, the post-human and, in Jonathan Glazers cool, disturbing and moving science-fiction film Under the Skin, a sometimes clothing-optional extraterrestrial.

Oh, yeah, the naked thing. Yes, Johansson goes full birthday suit. But before you nerds start the car, know that as in Her, Johansson is savvy enough to understand how the audience has come to regard her body; she and Glazer use that in ingenious, sometimes terrifying ways.

In Her, she did a terrific job acting with nothing but her voice; no physical form on screen at all. In Under the Skin, we first see her naked form in a nonsexual, surreal and scary moment. It is decidedly not a turn-on.

At first, it is quite literally hard to know what to make of Under the Skin. The opening images are abstract: A white dot on a black screen gets larger, then turns into concentric rings.

Over the terrific score by Mica Levi a sort of a cross between the choral bits of 2001 (a film recalled also by the opening visuals) and the industrial thrum of Eraserhead we hear a voice, Johansson, if one listens carefully, practicing words and vowel sounds.

The white circles image resolves into an eye. The inference is that a lifeform, eventually Johansson-shaped, is being assembled in a very blank, very bright room somewhere.

This woman-shaped alien is never given a name; much like Nicolas Roegs The Man Who Fell to Earth (another touchstone) she is definitely Not From Around Here. Methodically, sans visible emotion, the woman assembles her earthly identity some out-of-fashion clothing here, some lipstick there.

Assisted by an equally mysterious man on a motorcycle who functions as her handler (we assume the two never speak), she steals a van and drives around Glasgow, Scotland, picking up strange men, whom she then seduces (it is implied) and, uh preserves in amber, more or less.

When she is alone, the affect is impenetrable, her face impossible to read. With the men, she is personable and charming.

Most of the movies dialogue takes place in the van, when the woman, speaking in a decent British accent, chats up these anonymous guys (in apparently improvised scenes with nonactors). No wonder they go back to an abandoned house with her, which is where things turn for the obtuse.

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Scarlett Johansson surprises Under the Skin