Character analysis- Under the Skin

Under The Skin is a 2013 science fiction thriller which stars Scarlett Johansson. 

Laura 

The character that Johansson plays in the film is quite mysterious. From the start of the film we see she is a character that is not very human like and we find out that she is some sort of alien creature . The first time we see her is when she is examining another woman's body that looks quite similar to her and we do not really know what is going on. As the film goes on we see her in a van in Scotland trying too find single men who she then takes to a weird black infinite lagoon where they slowly sink into it and later we see that there bodies mutate and sort of com-bust. She carries this on through out the first half and then her ideology starts to change after she meets a disfigured man and for some reason lets him free. After that her character seems to be trying to act more human like and understand what it means to be a human. We see some glimpses of this before like when she is looking at an ant on her hand and also when she falls over and gets strangers helping her. After this she ditches her van that she used to find men and goes on a walk around rural Scotland looking to fit into humanity. She tries to blend in and we see her eating some cake. 

Though at the beginning the audience may not feel sympathy to her and more her victims that she kills, towards the end when she is trying to embrace humanity they do. She acts almost child like as she is not really aware of the world and is always quite vulnerable. The tables turn for her and predator becomes the prey. 

It is never clear what Johanssons character is doing on earth but the audience assume that the man on the motorcycle is working with her and is always one step behind her clearing up things that she has done to cover their tracks. The only point in which they interact is when she is just standing in a room and he walks in just looking and observing her and then leaves. It is clear to assume that he is just checking up on her to make sure she still looks human and her identity has not bee revealed to anyone else the.  

Johansson performance as Laura is also really good. She inhabits her very well and you can see at first she is very blank as the alien and quite unresponsive to the world, lacking emotion as well as empathy on the outside but through out the film you can see that internally she is gaining much more knowledge and wants to be more human and learn from them.