Skincare

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

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Elizabeth Banks delivers a solid performance as an aesthetician at the end of her rope in Austin Peters’ “Skincare.” The film has fine apprehension and suspense even though it defies logic and doesn’t quite suspend disbelief.

Hope (Elizabeth Banks) is an obsessive entrepreneur starting her own care line. She is never without her Starbucks coffee and is nervous even when things are going well.

They don’t go well for long.

One day she discovers to her horror that her email account has been hacked. She is thought to have left lewd and lascivious messages to all friends, and clients disappear. Aggressive men show up at her business demanding sex. Her TV debut is canceled.

Hope immediately thinks the man responsible for the sabotage is her egotistical competitor Angel (Luis Gerardo Mendez) and resolves to fight back. She buys a gun and mace.

She finds a man going through her phone and sprays him.

Hope is at her wit’s end. Enter the positive thought life coach Jordan (Lewis Pullman) who insists he can fix everything along with being her photographer. Then Hope’s mechanic (Erik Palladino) insists that he alone can protect her from invasive and unwanted visits from strangers.

Hope consents to the mechanic’s guardianship.

Suffice it to say, Hope’s life becomes nearly hopeless.

The drama is aided by spacey cool visuals of Los Angeles, making it a blend of “Mullholland Drive” and “The Stepford Wives.” Behind every pink walkway is a reptilian being out for blood.

Lewis Pullman gives a scary performance as a life coach with multiple image problems.

Although the finale feels hectic and made for TV, both Banks and Pullman make this film into a sardonic attack on “Barbie.”

Write Ian at ianfree11@yahoo.com