Movie Critique – Elisabeth Moss Gets Outshone by Kate Hudson in Oddball Film
There are sequences in the unveiled B-movie frightfest Shell that would make it seem like a wild five-wines-in kitschy gem if described in isolation. Picture the segment where the actress's seductive beauty mogul forces her co-star to use a enormous device while making her stare into a looking glass. Additionally, a abrupt beginning starring former performer Elizabeth Berkley sadly cutting away shells that have grown on her skin before being killed by a unknown murderer. Then, Hudson serves an refined meal of her shed epidermis to enthused diners. And, Kaia Gerber transforms into a enormous crustacean...
It's a shame Shell was as wildly entertaining as the summaries imply, but there's something curiously lifeless about it, with actor-turned-director Max Minghella finding it hard to deliver the luridly indulgent pleasures that something as silly as this so plainly demands. Audiences may wonder what or why Shell is and the target viewers, a cheaply made lark with very little to offer for those who weren't involved in the production, seeming more redundant given its unfortunate resemblance to The Substance. The two focus on an LA actor struggling to get the roles and recognition she thinks she deserves in a ruthless field, unfairly critiqued for her appearance who is then tempted by a game-changing procedure that grants immediate benefits but has terrifying consequences.
Although Fargeat's version hadn't debuted last year at Cannes, four months before Minghella's was shown at the Toronto film festival, the comparison would still not be favorable. While I was not a big enthusiast of The Substance (a gaudily crafted, too drawn-out and shallow act of shock value mildly saved by a stellar acting) it had an undeniable stickiness, swiftly attaining its appropriate niche within the entertainment world (expect it to be one of the most parodied films in next year's Scary Movie 6). Shell has about the same degree of insight to its obvious social critique (expectations for women's looks are extremely harsh!), but it can't match its extreme physical terror, the film in the end recalling the kind of cheap imitation that would have trailed The Substance to the video store back in the day (the Orca to its Jaws, the knock-off etc).
The film is oddly headlined by Moss, an actor not known for her lightness, poorly suited in a role that needs someone more ready to dive into the absurdity of the territory. She worked with Minghella on The Handmaid's Tale (one can understand why they both might crave a break from that show's relentless darkness), and he was so determined for her to star that he decided to adjust for her being visibly six months pregnant, leading to the star being awkwardly covered in a lot of bulky jackets and outerwear. As an uncertain star seeking to push her entry into Hollywood with the help of a shell-based beauty regimen, she might not really sell the role, but as the sleek 68-year-old CEO of a dangerous beauty brand, Hudson is in far greater control.
The actor, who remains a consistently overlooked talent, is again a joy to watch, excelling at a specifically LA brand of faux-earnest fakeness supported by something genuinely sinister and it's in her regrettably short scenes that we see what the film had the potential to become. Matched with a more comfortable opponent and a wittier script, the film could have come across like a feverishly mean cross between a 1950s female melodrama and an 1980s monster movie, something Death Becomes Her did so exceptionally.
But the script, from Jack Stanley, who also wrote the equally weak action thriller Lou, is never as acidic or as intelligent as it could be, satire kept to its most obvious (the climax centering on the use of an NDA is funnier in concept than delivery). Minghella doesn't seem sure in what he's really trying to create, his film as simply, slowly filmed as a afternoon serial with an similarly poor music. If he's trying to do a winking carbon copy of a low-rent tape fright, then he hasn't gone far enough into studied pastiche to make it believable. Shell should take us all the way to the brink, but it's too fearful to take the plunge.
Shell is offered for rental digitally in the US, in Australia on 30 October and in the UK on 7 November
