Shell Review – Elisabeth Moss Gets Outshone by Her Co-Star in Schlocky Curio
There are sequences in the dumped low-budget shocker Shell that might present it like a frivolous inebriated cult favorite if taken out of context. Imagine the scene where Kate Hudson's seductive health guru makes Elisabeth Moss to masturbate with a large sex toy while making her stare into a reflective surface. Additionally, a abrupt beginning starring former dancer Elizabeth Berkley emotionally hacking off growths that have appeared on her body before being murdered by a hooded assailant. Then, Hudson serves an refined meal of her discarded skin to enthused diners. Furthermore, Kaia Gerber becomes a massive sea creature...
If only Shell was as wildly entertaining as the summaries imply, but there's something curiously lifeless about it, with star turned helmer Max Minghella struggling to bring the luridly indulgent pleasures that something as silly as this so obviously needs. It's never quite obvious what or why Shell is and its intended audience, a cheaply made lark with minimal appeal for those who had no role in the project, appearing more superfluous given its unfortunate resemblance to The Substance. Both focus on an Hollywood performer striving to get the roles and recognition she feels entitled to in a ruthless field, wrongly evaluated for her looks who is then tempted by a revolutionary process that provides instant rewards but has terrifying consequences.
Though Fargeat's version hadn't premiered last year at Cannes, ahead of Minghella's was unveiled at the Toronto film festival, the contrast would still not be favorable. Although I was not a big enthusiast of The Substance (a garishly made, excessively lengthy and empty act of provocation somewhat rescued by a brilliant star turn) it had an undeniable stickiness, easily finding its appropriate niche within the culture (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 obvious social critique (expectations for women's looks are extremely harsh!), but it fails to rival its exaggerated grotesquery, the film ultimately resembling the kind of cheap imitation that would have come after The Substance to the rental shop back in the day (the inferior sequel, the budget version etc).
The film is oddly headlined by Moss, an actor not known for her humor, miscast in a role that requires someone more ready to embrace the absurdity of the subject matter. She teamed up with Minghella on The Handmaid's Tale (one can see why they both might long for a break from that show's punishing grimness), and he was so determined for her to star that he decided to accommodate her being noticeably six months pregnant, resulting in the star being distractingly hidden in a lot of oversized sweatshirts and outerwear. As an insecure actor seeking to fight her path into Hollywood with the help of a shell-based beauty regimen, she might not really sell the role, but as the slithering 68-year-old CEO of a dangerous beauty brand, Hudson is in significantly better form.
The actor, who remains a always underestimated star, is again a joy to watch, excelling at a distinctly Hollywood style of pretend sincerity underscored by something truly menacing and it's in her regrettably short scenes that we see what the film might have achieved. Matched with a more comfortable sparring partner and a wittier script, the film could have unfolded like a deliriously nasty cross between a mid-century women's drama and an decade-old beast flick, something Death Becomes Her did so exceptionally.
But the script, from Jack Stanley, who also wrote the equally weak action thriller Lou, is never as biting or as intelligent as it could be, mockery kept to its most obvious (the ending relying on the use of an NDA is more humorous in idea than realization). Minghella doesn't seem confident in what he's really trying to produce, his film as plainly, lethargically directed as a afternoon serial with an just as bad music. If he's trying to do a knowing carbon copy of a bottom shelf VHS horror, then he hasn't gone far enough into studied pastiche to sell it as such. Shell should take us all the way into madness, but it's too afraid to make the jump.
Shell is up for hire via streaming in the US, in Australia on 30 October and in the UK on 7 November
