Film Analysis – Elisabeth Moss Gets Substance-d by Kate Hudson in Schlocky Curio
There are sequences in the dumped low-budget shocker Shell that might present it like a wild five-wines-in camp classic if described in isolation. Picture the segment where the actress's glamorous beauty mogul makes Elisabeth Moss to masturbate with a large sex toy while making her stare into a mirror. Moreover, a abrupt beginning featuring former performer Elizabeth Berkley sadly hacking off growths that have developed on her flesh before being murdered by a hooded assailant. Subsequently, Hudson presents an elegant dinner of her removed outer layer to enthused guests. Furthermore, Kaia Gerber turns into a enormous crustacean...
It's a shame Shell was as hilariously enjoyable as those descriptions suggest, but there's something strangely dull about it, with actor-turned-director Max Minghella finding it hard to bring the excessive delights 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 minimal appeal for those who had no role in the project, seeming more redundant given its regrettable similarity to The Substance. Each highlight an LA actor fighting to get the jobs and fame she thinks she deserves in a cruel industry, wrongly evaluated for her physical traits who is then tempted by a transformative treatment that provides instant rewards but has frightening drawbacks.
Although Fargeat's version hadn't launched last year at Cannes, preceding Minghella's was unveiled at the Toronto film festival, the comparison would still not be kind. Even though I was not a particular fan of The Substance (a gaudily crafted, excessively lengthy and shallow act of provocation partially redeemed by a brilliant star turn) it had an unmistakable memorability, readily securing its appropriate niche 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 level of depth to its and-then-what commentary (expectations for women's looks are unreasonably brutal!), but it doesn't equal its extreme physical terror, the film ultimately resembling the kind of cheap imitation that would have trailed The Substance to the video store back in the day (the inferior sequel, the knock-off etc).
It's strangely led by Moss, an actress not known for her humor, miscast in a role that needs someone more ready to lean into the silliness of the territory. She worked with Minghella on The Handmaid's Tale (one can see why they both might desire a break from that show's punishing grimness), and he was so determined for her to headline that he decided to adjust for her being clearly six months pregnant, leading to the star being distractingly hidden in a lot of big hoodies and jackets. As an uncertain star 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 sleek 68-year-old CEO of a life-threatening beauty brand, Hudson is in significantly better form.
The actor, who remains a consistently overlooked talent, is again a pleasure to watch, excelling at a distinctly Hollywood style of faux-earnest fakeness supported by something truly menacing and it's in her unfortunately limited scenes that we see what the film could have been. Coupled with a more comfortable opponent and a sharper script, the film could have played like a wildly vicious cross between a 50s “woman's picture” and an 1980s monster movie, something Death Becomes Her did so brilliantly.
But the script, from Jack Stanley, who also wrote the similarly limp action thriller Lou, is never as acidic or as smart as it might have been, mockery kept to its most obvious (the ending centering on the use of an NDA is more humorous in idea than delivery). Minghella doesn't seem confident in what he's really trying to produce, his film as simply, ploddingly shot as a daytime soap with an equally rubbishy score. If he's trying to do a winking exact duplicate of a low-rent tape fright, then he hasn't gone far enough into deliberate homage to convince the audience. Shell should take us all the way to the brink, but it's too scared to make the jump.
Shell is offered for rental via streaming in the US, in Australia on 30 October and in the UK on 7 November
