Skincare Converts a Real Case into Superficial Satire

The beauty industry has long been rife with grifters preying on invented insecurities, and the advent of social media has only exacerbated the consumerist drive to correct (or in more PC terms, perform “self-care” on) bodily features deemed unattractive by an abstract haute hivemind. Of course, women and femmes are the primary targets of this bombardment of targeted ads promoting supposed beauty enhancements, which typically entail sinking money in a pricey product or procedure. Hope Goldman (Elizabeth Banks) understands the stakes of this business all too well, both as a famed facialist for the stars as well as a woman rapidly reaching middle age in youth-obsessed Hollywood. Unfortunately, the ageist and misogynistic nature of cosmetic culture are left totally unexamined in Skincare, the feature debut from director Austin Peters.

Skincare‘s screenplay—co-written by Peters, Sam Freilich and Deering Regan—is inspired by celebrity facialist Dawn DaLuise’s arrest, subject of tabloid headlines back in 2014, but rather than heightening the intrinsic allure of the story, this fictionalization winds up muddling it. Greg Nichols’ 2015 Los Angeles Times piece on DaLuise’s case spins a far more riveting yarn than Skincare, which instead constructs a convoluted central conspiracy without the guts to critique the broader industry and cultural attitude it engages with.

The film opens with Goldman taping a news segment promoting her new Italian-made skincare line, which launches in two short weeks. “I don’t wanna date myself here,” she says with a dainty throat clear, “but reputation is everything in this business. I don’t see my life, who I am, as separate from my work.” This blurred line between Hope’s professional and personal worlds is precisely what leads to her initial spiral, especially when a rival facialist Angel (Luis Gerardo Mendez) opens a studio right across the street from hers.

You see, just under the taut façade of Hope’s success lie rampant financial troubles (her rent is past due, and her longtime landlord grows tired of her tardiness), anxiety over the prospective success of her new product line and the pervasively exploitative expectations of the sleazy men in her life. All of these stressors come to a head when she wakes up one morning to find that her entire client list has been sent an email blast full of sexual obscenities and candid confessions about her debts. “I’ve been hacked!” Hope screeches at her business partner Marine (Michaela Jae Rodriguez) upon entering her studio. Feeling immediately ostracized as her reputation tanks, Hope turns to a young life coach named Jordan (Lewis Pullman) for guidance on how to get back at Angel, who she suspects is tarnishing her good name in order to elevate his own.

Those who followed the DaLuise scandal can mostly piece together the rest of the film’s twisty narrative from here, though Hope’s fate departs drastically from DaLuise’s toward Skincare’s climax. Again, the liberties taken by the filmmakers are perplexing mostly in their lack of incisive commentary: Why not more intentionally probe the inherent racism, misogyny, ageism and classism of what our society considers “beautiful,” particularly when much of the media attention around DaLuise’s case had to do with her less-than-polished mugshot? Even the racially-charged hatred DaLuise expressed for her real-life Latinx rival is curiously toned down here. There is certainly merit in exploration of the sexual harassment Hope must constantly evade—whether from her so-called “friends” or strangers who begin showing up to her studio at the behest of her invisible assailant—but it’s only a fraction of the full scope.

Banks seems up to the challenge of adopting more nuance into her performance, delving into DaLuise’s thorny interior and front-facing life for inspiration. (Though apparently the actress had no idea that Skincare was riffing on a decade-old case in the first place, so maybe not.) Regardless, she brings an intrinsic appeal as an overwhelmingly privileged woman who falls down on her luck, evoking audience empathy even when she’s a sniveling fool. But there’s a palpable feeling that not enough research or thematic intrigue went into the project. Also, I must petition that actors and directors alike immediately cease relying on the glassy-eyed, wide-toothed grin to symbolize feminine psychopathy. (The TikTokification of Pearl is certainly the culprit here, but no matter.)

Disappointing but not outright disastrous, Skincare never penetrates past superficial observations of how beauty, success and artificiality constantly commingle among the Los Angeles elite. As Hope descends into a conspiratorial fugue state, it recalls the mania that often clouds women’s inability to engage thoughtfully with our own lives below the skin we live in. Instead of a flesh and blood enemy out to get us, we are plagued with obsessive thoughts on an increasingly frequent basis as we age: Are the lines around my mouth deepening? Where did this dark spot come from? Is my hair graying? Have I put on weight? How do I look like her? More fascinating than any noir-adjacent plot twist is the following question: When a woman ages and loses her power—in other words, her beauty—what is she willing to do to regain it?

Director: Austin Peters
Writers: Sam Freilich, Austin Peters, Deering Regan
Stars: Elizabeth Banks, Lewis Pullman, Luis Gerardo Mendez, Michaela Jae Rodriguez, Nathan Fillion
Release Date: August 16, 2024

Natalia Keogan is Filmmaker Magazine’s web editor, and regularly contributes freelance film reviews here at Paste. Her writing has also appeared in Blood Knife Magazine, SlashFilm and Daily Grindhouse, among others. She lives in Queens with her large orange cat. Find her on Twitter @nataliakeogan