The Reel Review
A well-known Hollywood esthetician starts to unravel on the eve of a big new product launch after an increasingly disturbing series of events prompts her to suspect sabotage by an up-and-coming skincare rival. Elizabeth Banks, Jason Manuel Olazabel and Lewis Pullman star in this thriller based on a true story.
Skincare is a cautionary tale about the dangers of letting people you don’t really know very well into your life, illustrating just how quickly a manipulative psychopath can lead to some profoundly poor decision-making by individuals who are insecure and/or paranoid. The film is also a sendup of narcissism, Hollywood and the skincare industry.
Banks, who also served as the film’s executive producer, does a nice job elevating the increasingly predictable but interesting story that plays out like a kooky mashup of a dark comedy and a thriller. But co-writer/film director Austin Peters, best known for directing music videos, oddly diminishes his already bland, box-ticking storytelling with clunky pacing that make Skincare feel more like a second-rate Lifetime movie.
REEL FACTS
• Skincare is loosely based on Hollywood esthetician Dawn DaLuise, who spent 10 months in jail in 2014 before being acquitted of a murder-for-hire scheme against her rival that she says was set up by two stalkers. DaLuise, whose clients reportedly included Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alicia Silverstone, and Alyson Hannigan, is currently battling colorectal cancer.
• Elizabeth Banks and Nathan Fillion last appeared in the 2006 sci-fi/horror Slither.
• Lewis Pullman, the son of actor Bill Pullman, stars in the 2024 horror film Salem’s Lot.
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