Starring: Brady Corbett, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Elisabeth Shue, Michelle Trachtenberg, Jeff Licon
Director: Gregg Araki
The film: Although the world appears to be ready - just - for Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain and its gay cowboys, whether maverick independent filmmaker Gregg Araki's latest offering will find an audience is another matter entirely.
Granted, the man behind the likes of the controversial Totally F****D Up (1993) and Doom Generation (1995) has produced an intriguing piece of cinema. But it's never an easy watch, to say the least.
The subject matter, for starters, will have many running for cover. Mysterious Skin centres on the lives of two young men - played as eight-year-olds by George Webster (Brian) and Chase Ellison (Neil) - and how their lives are affected by sexual abuse. Their destinies are forever entwined one fateful night and later - as teenagers and played by Brady Corbett and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (below left with Jeff Licon and Michelle Trachtenberg) - we see how that night has affected them.
Brian is convinced he was abducted by aliens and the goings on - both on and around that evening - have led Neil into life as a rent boy. We're told, via Neil's voiceover and some disturbing flashbacks, what actually happened, and then follow the fate of the two lads - as Neil lives out a life he believes he was somehow always in some control of, and as Brian tries to piece together his own mystery, a voyage that eventually leads the young men back together.