Watching this movie as an 18-year-old girl, who still has a lot to learn about sex and the world that it creates, I took a lot from this film. Mysterious Skin, based on the novel by Scott Heim, takes on the topic of child molestation and how different victims deal with it throughout their lives.<br /><br />The film centers around two characters: Neil McCormick and Brian Lackey. Together once in their childhood, they now live in separate worlds but share a deep, dark connection. Neil, who dominates the story, is a fascinating, unique teenager who developed a fixation on older men very early on in his life. He was sexually abused as a young child, and, as he gets older, it remains with him in whatever he does. He lives life as a rambunctious, dark, teenage hustler. Brian, who was also abused, can not remember it at all and, instead, believes he was abducted by aliens and he spends his entire life trying to figure out answers.<br /><br />Towards the end of the film, in a beautiful scene that captures all the true pain of an adolescent in about three minutes, life slowly brings these two back together to re-live what happened to them as children and discover what it meant to both of them.<br /><br />The main factor that contributes to the greatness of this film is the acting. Especially by the two main characters Neil, played by Joesph Gordon-Levitt, and Brian, played by Brady Corbet. The two young actors literally transformed into their characters and deliver the kind of acting that forces the viewers to forget their watching two actors and are merely watching two people. Gordon-Levitt was particularly brilliant in his role. He stole every scene as the intriguing Neil McCormick and makes you scared of him but also begging for him to appear back on screen. It is, by far, the best acting of his career.<br /><br />Although many scenes are incredibly (and I mean incredibly) hard to watch, it is, in a sense, important to understand that this exists in our world. Sex is a mysterious thing, and it can often turn people into maniacs or lost souls. Director/Screenwriter, Gregg Araki, Gordon-Levitt, and Corbet all agree in the auto-commentary for the film that the scenes that were filmed throughout Neil and Brian's childhood were shot in a sort of fantastical, distorted way to capture how adults look back on childhood. During childhood, every experience is looked at in an innocent way and even looking back on those experiences, adults continue to see them in that sort of naive light. Childhood almost becomes like a fantasy, and even when awful things happen to a child, they see it in a child-like way. As the film progresses, and as the characters grow older, it becomes more clear and real, just as life does.<br /><br />But the film is not just about childhood abuse. It is about the destruction of innocence, and how it affects people. It is about discovering what's real and finally coming to terms with reality. It is about leaving childhood behind and stepping into the adult world. And it is also about the connections and bonds we create with each other during our lives and how distance and time do not break them. Every element of the film is beautiful-the music, the look, the feel, the acting-it all comes together to create a film that is almost like watching a living work of art.