Under the Skin (1997) on Netflix
Their mother dies of a brain tumor. Nineteen-year-old Iris leaves her boyfriend and job, moves into a run-down flat she fills with flowers, while her pregnant older sister Rose carries on.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb6.4/101,730 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes90%
Trailer
Plot summary
Iris and Rose Kelly lose their mother to a brain tumor. Their father left the family for Australia ten years earlier, so the two sisters face the loss without him. Rose is twenty-four, married and pregnant, and she manages to cope with the death. Iris is nineteen, and she has always believed that Rose was their mother's favorite, an old rivalry that is still there between them. Iris spirals, breaking up with her boyfriend Gary, giving up her job and leaving the flat they shared for a run-down apartment that she fills with flowers. Her behavior grows riskier, and she picks up men for a series of sexual encounters.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Under the Skin (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Carine Adler drew on the book Mother, Madonna, Whore by forensic psychiatrist Estela V. Welldon, which holds that men turn grief outward as anger while women turn it inward, at times through self-harm and promiscuity.
- Adler said Welldon's theory held that women act out anger on themselves through compulsive behavior including sex, while men direct anger outwards through crime or abuse of women.
- Some female viewers called Adler's depiction of female sexuality voyeuristic and bordering on exploitative; Adler replied that she felt female sexuality was under-represented on screen and wanted to explore it.
- The Guardian put Under the Skin at number 15 on its Best British Films 1984-2009 list, and Time Out ranked it number 80 among the 100 best British films.
