Restless Iris is a 19-year-old woman who is unable to grieve upon the death of her mother. Instead she abandons her job, argues bitterly with her conventional older sister, and leaves her steady boyfriend. Iris proceeds to lose herself in a alcohol and to spiral out of control sexually, becoming complicit in her own self-destruction. Iris starts to pick up men to sleep with, wearing her mother’s fur coat and wig, dressing like a “slut,” as her sister puts it. We see Iris’s sexual life as both erotic and horrific. After being rejected by all those close to her, Iris ends up wandering the streets in a drunken daze. This film is ultimately about redemption, as the sisters reconcile and Iris makes a life-affirming recovery from the harrowing descent of self-destruction. The young actress Samantha Morton conveys the complex inner life of Iris in a film that knows how to depict depravity without seeming to celebrate it. Under the Skin explores new territory by dealing with the grieving process as we’ve rarely seen before, evoking the painful processes of the female protagonists, in Breaking the waves and Three Colours: Blue. Finally, Iris’s quizzical reaction to her mother’s death poses broader questions about family relationships and personal responsibility. It is ultimately through her risky sexual exploration, in which she nearly loses it all, that she eventually comes to terms with her mother’s death and begins her life again. The experimental possibilities of this film’s ultra-low budget results in a highly charged and stylistically dynamic film. (Im Hyun-Ock)