Shell Review – Elisabeth Moss Gets Overshadowed by Kate Hudson in Schlocky Curio
There are moments in the unveiled low-budget shocker Shell that would make it seem like a wild inebriated kitschy gem if viewed separately. Imagine the part where Kate Hudson's vampy wellness CEO forces her co-star to masturbate with a enormous device while making her stare into a mirror. There's also, a initial scene starring former Showgirl Elizabeth Berkley sadly cutting away growths that have appeared on her flesh before being killed by a masked killer. Next, Hudson offers an elegant dinner of her discarded skin to enthused guests. Plus, Kaia Gerber transforms into a enormous crustacean...
If only Shell was as wildly entertaining as that all makes it sound, but there's something oddly flat about it, with star turned helmer Max Minghella finding it hard to bring the luridly indulgent pleasures that something as absurd as this so clearly requires. Audiences may wonder what or why Shell is and who it might be for, a inexpensive endeavor with very little to offer for those who didn't participate in the production, seeming more redundant given its unfortunate resemblance to The Substance. The two center on an Hollywood performer fighting to get the roles and recognition she believes is her due in a cruel industry, wrongly evaluated for her physical traits who is then lured by a transformative treatment that offers quick results but has terrifying consequences.
Though Fargeat's version hadn't premiered last year at Cannes, ahead of Minghella's was shown at the Toronto film festival, the contrast would still not be flattering. While I was not a big enthusiast of The Substance (a gaudily crafted, overlong and shallow act of shock value partially redeemed by a stellar acting) it had an unmistakable memorability, readily securing its deserved place within the entertainment world (expect it to be one of the most satirized features in next year's Scary Movie 6). Shell has about the same degree of insight to its and-then-what commentary (female appearance ideals are impossibly punishing!), but it can't match its extreme physical terror, the film in the end recalling the kind of cheap imitation that would have followed The Substance to the rental shop back in the day (the inferior sequel, the knock-off etc).
The film is oddly headlined by Moss, an performer not known for her humor, miscast in a role that requires someone more ready to lean into the absurdity of the territory. She teamed up with Minghella on The Handmaid's Tale (one can see why they both might desire a break from that show's unrelenting bleakness), and he was so desperate for her to star that he decided to work around her being clearly six months pregnant, cue the star being obviously concealed in a lot of bulky jackets and outerwear. As an insecure actor seeking to elbow her way into Hollywood with the help of a crustaceous skin routine, she might not really sell the role, but as the sinister 68-year-old CEO of a life-threatening beauty brand, Hudson is in much more command.
The performer, who remains a perennially underrated force, is again a pleasure to watch, perfecting a specifically LA brand of pretend sincerity backed up by something genuinely sinister and it's in her regrettably short scenes that we see what the film might have achieved. Coupled with a more suitable sparring partner and a wittier script, the film could have come across like a feverishly mean cross between a mid-century women's drama and an 80s creature feature, something Death Becomes Her did so brilliantly.
But the script, from Jack Stanley, who also wrote the just as flaccid action thriller Lou, is never as acidic or as clever as it might have been, mockery kept to its most transparent (the ending relying on the use of an NDA is funnier in concept than delivery). Minghella doesn't seem confident in what he's really trying to produce, his film as plainly, ploddingly shot as a daytime soap with an equally rubbishy score. If he's trying to do a self-aware exact duplicate of a cheap cassette scare, then he hasn't pushed hard enough into conscious mimicry to make it believable. Shell should take us all the way to the brink, but it's too afraid to commit fully.
Shell is available to rent digitally in the US, in Australia on 30 October and in the UK on 7 November
