The adaptation of the novel Under the Skin by Michel Faber that was published back in 2000 is getting closer to release as the Jonathan Glazer work is appearing at the Venice Film Festival this week and a new teaser has surfaced for it. The films main star at the moment that’s getting the nod is Scarlett Johansson as she delves into the adaptation done by Walter Campbell and director Jonathan Glazer. This marks Glazer’s third film and first one since the 2004 release of Birth.
No wider release is currently scheduled as it’s currently just being distributed by Film4 and is hoping for wider distribution through the festival circuit with a pickup there.
Plot concept: The protagonist is Isserley, an extraterrestrial sent to Earth by a rich corporation on her planet to pick up unwary hitchhikers. She drugs them and delivers them to her compatriots, who mutilate and fatten her victims so that they can be turned into meat—human (“vodsel”) flesh is a delicacy on the aliens’ barren homeworld. The novel is darkly satirical. It touches on political themes around big business, intensive farming, and environmental decay; and reflects on more personal questions of sexual identity, humanity, snobbery, and mercy.
