Shell Review – Elisabeth Moss Gets Outshone by Kate Hudson in Schlocky Curio
There are scenes in the dumped B-movie frightfest Shell that could paint it as like a wild inebriated kitschy gem if viewed separately. Picture the part where the actress's glamorous health guru makes her co-star to operate a enormous device while forcing her to look into a mirror. There's also, a abrupt beginning starring former Showgirl Elizabeth Berkley emotionally removing crustaceans that have grown on her flesh before being slaughtered by a masked killer. Subsequently, Hudson serves an sophisticated feast of her removed outer layer to enthused attendees. Furthermore, Kaia Gerber transforms into a enormous crustacean...
I wish Shell was as hilariously enjoyable as the summaries imply, but there's something strangely dull about it, with performer turned filmmaker Max Minghella finding it hard to deliver the luridly indulgent pleasures that something as silly as this so plainly demands. It's never quite obvious what or why Shell is and the target viewers, a cheaply made lark with very little to offer for those who weren't involved in the filmmaking, feeling even less necessary given its regrettable similarity to The Substance. Each center on an Hollywood performer fighting to get the roles and recognition she thinks she deserves in a cruel industry, unjustly judged for her looks who is then tempted by a game-changing procedure that provides instant rewards but has horrifying side effects.
Even if Fargeat's version hadn't launched last year at Cannes, four months before Minghella's was shown at the Toronto film festival, the contrast would still not be favorable. Although I was not a particular fan of The Substance (a flashily produced, overlong and shallow act of shock value mildly saved by a killer lead performance) it had an clear lasting power, readily securing its rightful spot within the pop culture (expect it to be one of the most mocked movies in next year's Scary Movie 6). Shell has about the same amount of substance to its obvious social critique (female appearance ideals are extremely harsh!), but it fails to rival its extreme physical terror, the film ultimately resembling the kind of low-cost copycat that would have come after The Substance to the video store back in the day (the inferior sequel, the knock-off etc).
The film is oddly headlined by Moss, an actor not known for her humor, miscast in a role that needs someone more eager to embrace the silliness of the territory. She worked with Minghella on The Handmaid's Tale (one can understand why they both might crave a break from that show's punishing grimness), and he was so eager for her to star that he decided to accommodate her being clearly six months pregnant, resulting in the star being distractingly hidden in a lot of big hoodies and jackets. As an insecure actor seeking to push her entry into Hollywood with the help of a crustaceous skin routine, she might not really persuade, but as the slithering 68-year-old CEO of a life-threatening beauty brand, Hudson is in significantly better form.
The performer, who remains a consistently overlooked talent, is again a joy to watch, excelling at a specifically LA brand of pretend sincerity underscored by something truly menacing and it's in her unfortunately limited scenes that we see what the film had the potential to become. Coupled with a more comfortable sparring partner and a sharper script, the film could have come across like a deliriously nasty cross between a 1950s female melodrama and an 1980s monster movie, 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 intelligent as it might have been, mockery kept to its most transparent (the climax relying on the use of an NDA is funnier in concept than execution). Minghella doesn't seem certain in what he's really trying to make, his film as simply, slowly filmed as a daytime soap with an similarly poor soundtrack. If he's trying to do a self-aware direct imitation of a cheap cassette scare, then he hasn't pushed hard enough into studied pastiche to make it believable. Shell should take us all the way over the edge, but it's too afraid to take the plunge.
Shell is available to rent via streaming in the US, in Australia on 30 October and in the UK on 7 November
