Film Analysis – The Actress Gets Overshadowed by Kate Hudson in Oddball Film
There are sequences in the unveiled schlock horror Shell that could paint it as like a frivolous inebriated camp classic if described in isolation. Envision the scene where the actress's seductive beauty mogul forces Elisabeth Moss to masturbate with a large sex toy while forcing her to look into a reflective surface. Moreover, a cold open starring former dancer Elizabeth Berkley emotionally hacking off shells that have grown on her body before being killed by a masked killer. Then, Hudson presents an refined meal of her shed epidermis to excited guests. Plus, Kaia Gerber transforms into a giant lobster...
If only Shell was as outrageously fun as that all makes it sound, but there's something curiously lifeless about it, with performer turned filmmaker Max Minghella finding it hard to deliver the over-the-top thrills that something as ridiculous as this so clearly requires. The purpose remains unclear what or why Shell is and who it might be for, a low-budget experiment with minimal appeal for those who had no role in the project, feeling even less necessary given its regrettable similarity to The Substance. Each highlight an Los Angeles star fighting to get the jobs and fame she believes is her due in a ruthless field, unjustly judged for her appearance who is then lured by a revolutionary process that grants immediate benefits but has horrifying side effects.
Even if Fargeat's version hadn't debuted last year at Cannes, four months before Minghella's was unveiled at the Toronto film festival, the comparison would still not be flattering. Even though I was not a huge admirer of The Substance (a flashily produced, excessively lengthy and shallow act of shock value somewhat rescued by a stellar acting) it had an unmistakable memorability, swiftly attaining its deserved place within the culture (expect it to be one of the most satirized features in next year's Scary Movie 6). Shell has about the same amount of substance to its obvious social critique (beauty standards for women are impossibly punishing!), but it doesn't equal its exaggerated grotesquery, the film finally evoking the kind of low-cost copycat that would have followed The Substance to the video store back in the day (the lesser counterpart, the Critters to its Gremlins etc).
The film is oddly headlined by Moss, an actress not known for her humor, miscast in a role that demands someone more ready to dive into the ridiculousness of the subject matter. She worked with Minghella on The Handmaid's Tale (one can comprehend why they both might desire a break from that show's relentless darkness), and he was so desperate for her to headline that he decided to adjust for her being clearly six months pregnant, leading to the star being obviously concealed in a lot of bulky jackets and coats. As an self-doubting performer seeking to fight her path into Hollywood with the help of a crustaceous skin routine, she might not really convince, but as the sinister 68-year-old CEO of a hazardous beauty brand, Hudson is in much more command.
The performer, who remains a consistently overlooked talent, is again a delight to watch, perfecting a particular West Coast variety of insincere authenticity underscored by something authentically dark and it's in her all-too-brief scenes that we see what the film had the potential to become. Matched with a more suitable opponent and a wittier script, the film could have unfolded like a wildly vicious cross between a mid-century women's drama 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 biting or as intelligent as it should have been, social commentary kept to its most transparent (the climax relying on the use of an NDA is funnier in theory than execution). Minghella doesn't seem certain in what he's really trying to make, his film as bluntly, ploddingly shot as a daytime soap with an just as bad music. If he's trying to do a winking direct imitation of a low-rent tape fright, then he hasn't pushed hard enough into deliberate homage to make it believable. Shell should take us all the way to the brink, but it's too scared to commit fully.
Shell is offered for rental online in the US, in Australia on 30 October and in the UK on 7 November
