Under the Skin (Glazer 2013)

and so anyway it turns out that the best thing about Under the Skin (2013) – the dreary-with-nice-landscapes arthouse remake of Species (Donaldson 1995) that ultimately fails in it valiant attempt at comedy greatness by not crassly letting the dog who caused all the drownings survive after the parents and the Czech guy and the toddler die, though it comes close when the radio news announces that the father, a professor, was reported missing by his university when he failed to turn up to work on Monday morning – is not the perfect casting of blank-faced affectless Scarlett Johansson as the blank-faced affectless alien, nor that you can spend the last part of the movie correcting the typo in its title by chanting Undo the skin! Undo the Johansskin! but the fact that you can spend half the day reading articles that not only praise the film for subverting the male gaze and thus opening up towards otherness but also complain about all the Glaswegian accents…