Rating: R | Runtime: 96 minutes
Release Date: August 16th, 2024 (USA)
Studio: IFC Films
Director(s): Austin Peters
Writer(s): Sam Freilich & Deering Regan and Austin Peters

Things are about to blow-up.

This is supposed to be Hope Goldman’s (Elizabeth Banks) dream come true. After decades of work as Hollywood’s premier esthetician, she’s finally gifting her proprietary, handcrafted-in-Italy products to the marketplace. With two weeks until the official launch, Hope has already filmed a segment on “Brett & Kylie” (Nathan Fillion and Julie Chang) and gotten her exclusive clientele excited. It hasn’t been easy, though. Her financial backers dropped out and she’s had to leverage her own money to cross the finish line—much to the chagrin of her commercial landlord (John Billingsley’s Jeff). So, when Hope discovers her new neighbor is a rival studio (Luis Gerardo Méndez’s Angel Vergara), she cannot help being on-edge.

That’s when the dream begins to unravel in Austin Peters’ Skincare, co-written with original scribes Sam Freilich and Deering Regan. A heated altercation with Angel leads to another with Jeff and suddenly the pressure starts to mount. Her right-hand (Michaela Jaé Rodriguez’s Marine) knows it. A new acquaintance in Jordan (Lewis Pullman) knows it. And an enemy knows too considering the next morning finds her phone blowing up with concern and cancellations courtesy of a sexualized bulk email someone hacked into Hope’s account to send. Suddenly the calm façade projecting success is replaced by abject desperation.

Is Angel behind it? Someone Hope thinks is a friend? A stranger? Herself in some fugue state of self-destruction? Figuring out the identity of the culprit is the ultimate goal of the script, but that crime isn’t necessarily the biggest problem she faces. That lies within since Hope cannot get a grip during all the chaos. One problem leads to an over-the-top response that leads directly into another. That email starts to reveal who was really her friend in the first place with women jumping ship to her competitor and men trying to get into her pants. Everything from favors to promises adopt a sheen of quid pro quo as the question of Hope’s reputation risks killing her livelihood.

It’s a sprawling set of circumstances that juggles a lot at once. Insofar as how their outcomes impact Hope’s reaction, they’re well used. The moment she gets backed into a corner, she comes out swinging without any concern for the consequences. How they gel together into a cohesive plot, however, is different considering most of what happens is played with a vagueness that infers a climactic reveal of wrongdoing. I’m not saying that having one would provide a better result, but I also won’t say I wasn’t disappointed by the opposite. Peters and company do a good job providing closure, but the truth of who is doing what adds up to a fatefully unlucky finale doesn’t quite land with the impact we expect.

Because, as I said, Hope’s real worst enemy is herself. Regardless of who is responsible for everything else, how she acts in response is her ultimate undoing. And Banks is fantastic in the role, leaning into this crazed descent in a way that makes us both sympathize with her plight and question her judgment. The rest is simply too matter of fact by comparison. Rather than let some things prove to be red herrings, everything aligns so perfectly that it feels as though we’ve been duped. Because despite Hope getting caught up in it all to go too far herself, the film doesn’t prove paranoid enough to buy those wild swings. I enjoyed the ride, but the end left me saying, “Oh. That’s it?”

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[L-R] Elizabeth Banks and Lewis Pullman in SKINCARE; courtesy of IFC Films.