Under The Skin      ** subjective stars

     Beautifully shot on small, high end digital cameras, Under The Skin takes place in Glasgow and rural Scotland.  That's the nominal location because this film takes place in mood, more than in space.  Scarlett Johansson is an alien luring men to their deaths for sustenance, but if you're not into sci-fi don't let that meager, albeit creepy, plot line discourage you. What we're watching is life on Earth from the alien's point of view and Johansson does a nuanced job of making that real. 
        As she travels around in a van picking up men, the alien (and the viewer) are gradually  immersed in the stunning beauty and strangeness of nature and humanity.  My sister said the film was more of a poem than a film, by which she meant more experimental than narrative.   That's partly due to the films slower pacing, more Euro than LA.  Instead of plot turns, Under The Skin delivers story through a steady accretion of image and detail.  Better known for the masterful gangster flick Sexy Beast, Jonathan Glazer chose to use unknown or non-actors in most of the subsidiary roles and often used hidden cameras to add to the film's documentary feel.  Johansson and her victims appear in the nude,  a handy marketing tool,  but Glazer's focus is on physicality, not titillation.  There's zero porn factor.

   It's a visual poem about an alien's introduction to Earth.  What stayed with me after the film was  the beauty of the images and a feeling of wistfulness towards life on the planet.