The new Elizabeth Banks-led film Skincare centers on rival Hollywood estheticians and a murder plot rolled up with beauty standards, women as they age, and technology. It’s the kind of wild ride that could only be inspired by true events, and it is loosely based on the story of Dawn DaLuise, whose Skin Refinery was a staple of the glitterati in the 2000s. In Skincare, Banks’s Hope Goldman is the head of a beauty empire, and she’s always at the ready with a serum or lotion to hand to someone she’s just met. When Hope is faced with a stalker and a rival esthetician simultaneously, she becomes paranoid that the new skincare guru on the block, Angel Vergara (Luis Gerardo Méndez), is sabotaging her life and business.
On the surface, Skincare is about a paranoid rivalry that ends violently, but more than skin deep, the movie from director Austin Peters, addresses issues around Hope’s currency as a woman and the problematic nature of her accusations against and plot to take out Angel, who is Latino and queer-coded.
“This is a woman who has built this business. It’s her entire life. She doesn’t have a husband, she doesn't have a partner, she doesn't have kids, she doesn't even have a cat, right? This is, her entire identity is wrapped up in this business as it is for so many businesswomen and men,” Banks told The Advocate ahead of the film’s release. “But I just feel like the pressure of being part of a business whose entire commodity is youth and beauty…as someone who's middle-aged, I think the fight for relevance, to stay relevant in the world that she’s built for herself, is just a losing battle. It creates this incredible desperation in this character that was so fun to play because desperation then leads to horrible decision-making and then leads to chaos and ultimately, in this case, to violence.”
“I loved exploring that aspect to her. I mean, I’m a middle-aged actress in Hollywood. I know a little something about what she was going through,” Banks added.
Hope has leveraged her beauty and appeal in her business, but Skincare also shines a light on the men in her life who obliterate the boundaries she’s set, like Nathan Fillion’s smarmy talk show anchor Brett and Lewis Pullman’s faux nice guy Jordan. She faces an erosion of personal space both corporeal, like Brett’s advances, someone slashing her tires, and a hacker who invites men to sexually assault her.
“I find that women generally have so few avenues to power in this world anyway. And that youth and beauty and sexuality are certainly one of those avenues. And in the film, you see Hope exploiting those aspects of herself.…” Banks said. “It’s such a double-edged sword, because when it’s thrown back at her in this other way, I mean, I find that the idea that your identity can be taken away from you online is terrifying to me. And I think with the new AI stuff, it’s even more and more terrifying. I know that it exists for me personally, online. I don't consume a single terabyte of it or whatever…. I can't think about it. And it's really hard to protect yourself from.…”
“I think that really drove this character’s paranoia because it is so stripping of your dignity. And really, I was very moved by it while making the film and the idea of it. I'm really horrified by it at all times,” Banks said of Hope, whose only ally after a while is her assistant, Marine (Michaela Jaé Rodriguez). “The patriarchy is not interested in women being powerful.”
Though the man responsible for Hope’s downfall is closer to her than she thinks, she pins the crimes against her on Angel, who opens his business a stone's throw from hers. He's younger and more technologically savvy (his product line includes literal space-age formulas), and Méndez said he was drawn to the character because of his imperfections.
“I think what Skincare does is showing you all these characters and how they present themselves to the world, and then, in a very subtle way, show you the cracks of these characters and show you how they really are,” Méndez said. “And my character, in a way, he's the successful guy in the movie. He has the best technology from NASA to take care of the skin of all these celebrities, and he’s killing it. So you’ll think he has all figured out. And when you take a sneak, like a look in his [intimate life], you realize that he's also broken.”
Part of Skincare’s depth lies in its willingness to expose Hope’s inherent bias as a victim who victimizes Angel.
“Angel is a Latin character. We never know where he’s from. We just see that he’s Latin. He might be gay as well. So you have this white woman that feels very threatened by this gay Latin that he’s just doing his work,” Méndez said. “He’s just trying to do a good job. And she’s like, ‘This guy wants to kill me.’ When I read the script, I was like, Yeah, this is also very interesting to portray. …The movie has a lot of layers.”
Skincare is now available to rent of buy wherever you stream.
