MovieChat Forums > Under the Skin (2014) Discussion > What would you say is the film's main th...

What would you say is the film's main theme and message?

posted 4 years ago by TheMan18 (13015)
4 replies | jump to latest

Hi, SPOILERS ALERT - from how apparently the alien takes over the dead woman's body at the beginning to her constantly driving the van and asking for directions, to her taking men to their doom before killing them in weird sci-fi alien ways, to the fact that she tries to form a friendship with people to the final harrowing scene in the woods where that guy tries to intimately assault her before realizing she is an alien and setting her on fire...

What main theme and point are we as audiences supposed to derive from it?

That aliens can perhaps get a taste of our common humanity in all its flawed glory and in the process be both the predators and the victims at the end?

[–] Moonglum9 (11272) 4 years ago

That Scarlett Johansson looks good without any clothes on?

[–] LenkoPenko (157) 4 years ago

If you want more coherent themes and structure, you should read the novel.
The movie adaptation was more arthouse than anything, imo.

[–] TheMan18 (13015) 4 years ago

Its director Jonathan Glazer is a bit of an art-house specialist, given his other works like "Sexy Beast" (2000) and "Birth" (2004) as well as the music-video for Radiohead's "Karma Police" music single.

[–] TheMan18 (13015) 4 years ago

I have to say, I wasn't really a fan of that bad man in the woods becoming an unlikely "hero" like that by killing her, I'd rather she killed him, but maybe the director here was saying that no matter what we can be like as human beings, or aliens for that matter, we can be both guilty perpetrators and innocent victims often at the same time but under different circumstances.