In Her Skin

This a powerful movie with a long lasting impression. I think Simone did a fantastic job with this story. She kept to the actual events of what happened to Rachel, her family, friends as well as Caroline without glorifying it, sugar coating it and hollywoodising it. It is real and it is raw. This is what happened and this is how the people involved experienced it. The acting is fantastic, the way the scenes flow and the cinematography is excellent. Along with the true story there are messages to take from it, one being involved and recognizing mental illness, as we know is a massive and growing problem in the community.

In 1999, in Melbourne, the Babers are a happy middle-class family, and the fifteen-year-old ballerina daughter Rachel Barber (Kate Bell) is in love with her boyfriend Manni (Khan Chittenden), who dances with her. One night, Mr. Barber (Guy Pearce) is waiting for Rachel at the tram station, but she never appears. On the next morning, Mrs. Barber (Miranda Otto) and he go to the police to report that their daughter is missing, but the police detective does not give much attention, believing Rachel is a runaway home. However, Mr.& Mrs. Baker do not give up and distribute missing person pamphlets along the tram route. Manni discloses to them that Rachel had been invited by an older woman for a confidential job to earn a great amount that would allow Rachel to buy the desired ballet slipper. Meanwhile, the unstable teenager Caroline Reid Robertson (Ruth Bradley), who has inferiority complex, low self-esteem, depression and eventual seizures due to the medicines she must take, sees Rachel and Manni making out in a bench on the street. She was a former front door neighbor to the Barber family, with divorced parents, that idolized Rachel and tried to imitate her. Her obsession increased over the years, and she plots a plan to lure Rachel and bring her to her apartment. What will happen to Rachel?

"In Her Skin" (2009) is a dramatic Australian thriller based on a true story. The screenplay is very well written, showing the story by different point of views from the family and the killer. Unfortunately, this DVD was not in my priority list of my collection and only yesterday I saw this great film. The sad story is very well-acted and despite the names of Guy Pearce, Miranda Otto and Sam Neill, the unknown Ruth Bradley steals the movie with her magnificent performance as an insane teenager. How Caroline transported Rachel's body to hide at the farmer of her father is never explained. Was her wealthy father involved? Further, the sentence of twenty years imprisoned with the right to probation after fourteen years is absolutely unfair to the Barbers, who lost a beloved fifteen-year-old daughter in a planned murder. It seems that the Australian justice system has similar problems to the Brazilian one. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Vítima Perfeita" ("The Perfect Victim")

I have always been a fan of Guy Pearce (who will always be remembered as Mike from Neighbours in the UK)who is an actor that always seems to appear in decent films. On that basis I decided to watch this small Australian film.

The film covers a real life case of a 15 year old girl who inexplicably goes missing from home. We see the reaction of her parents the excellent Pearce and Miranda Otto as they struggle to get the police to take the disappearance seriously. The film then concentrates on of the suspects a former babysitter played with chilling menace by Ruth Bradley and her father played by the dependable Sam Neill. The final part and weakest part of the film follows the missing girl.

The subject matter doesn't really make for happy viewing and for that i cannot bring myself to give it a higher mark, yet it is an excellently made film and one of the best of it's type I have seen. It certainly deserves a wider audience.

Be warned that one of the scenes in particular is extremely disturbing and may upset a lot of viewers.

Anyone whose child has gone missing, even momentarily, will connect with the earliest moments of this version of true events, but, perhaps only those for whom the loss remains unresolved for any serious length of time will know how close to their reality this film touches. It is almost relentlessly tough to watch because there is no place for pressure to be relieved, however briefly, by a joke, a glimmer of hope, a slither of a flaw to make us remember we are watching a dramatised version of events. I even find it tough to judge the quality of the acting because too often this film seems so vividly, so uncomfortably, and so chillingly real. I am, if truth be told, just in awe of all the performances I have witnessed and I still have to pinch myself to remember it was "just a film". Is that a compliment?

I felt tears on my cheeks three times during this film, not because I was sad, but because my being had to have an outlet and I couldn't laugh or smile. The emptiness, pointlessness, coldness, loneliness of a missing loved one is so bitingly portrayed and yet saying "okay that's enough, I have got your point" is as futile as the parents of Rachel Barber shouting "Rachel come home" on every street corner they could.

I remember Hitchcock being heavily criticised by some in the industry for a seven minute killing sequence in "Torn Curtain" when that was easier to justify because it was a work of fiction and a thriller rather than "a week or so in the real life of a family". And so I had mixed feelings about "I Am You" when I reflected on some of the things I had seen, including the closing statements popular with "factual" drama.

I am left with these mixed feelings ranging from the reality of the acting to the old adage that imagination is always more powerful than a picture, from the top to the bottom of the things I should feel. And ultimately I cannot give this film a points score because it doesn't feel like it entered the cinematic league stakes. It is a film and if you see it you will feel what it does to you rather than want to talk about to friends. And that IS tough.

A film with many names. "I am you" originally, turned to "In her skin" and in other countries the rather over used and not very original "Missing".

Already in the opening scene you realize this is film which will be pleasant on your eyes. A great opening scene! Beautifully shot, great camera movements, and great setting of emotional feelings, as well as colors and sounds. This is a film which is eye candy, though it's a bleak true story.

The film starts with a young daughter, Rachel, going missing on her way from dance practice. The parents know that this is serious, but as always, the police doesn't. Then we tend to another story, about Caroline, which has a mental illness, which affects not only the near family.

The film's problem is that the stories are starting over and over in the beginning and takes away the tension. This doesn't help the story telling. Too bad, because there's such an amount of talent here. I think a more traditional storyline would have done different. Without this, the film would have gotten a better score. Still a great story, but the jumping doesn't allow a proper story building for this to become a classic.

The mother of Caroline and her crying didn't convince me, but the cast is doing a great job. Amazing acting. A-class. Ruth Bradley is amazing in her role as Caroline.

The film reminded me of "Black swan" in more than one way. Both the mental illness, the ballet dancing and the overall quality. Well picked score, heavy on emotion. A great Film, and one if the better Australian films I've seen.