Screening so soon after The Substance doesn’t bode well for something like Shell, Max Minghella‘s campy, body horror ode to trashy escapist 90s cinema that similarly explores the world of ageing in Hollywood and how far someone will go to maintain perfection. With both films screening within a week of each other at this year’s TIFF, as well as their penchant for gory body horror, means that comparisons are inevitable, but Minghella’s fable is very much in its own lane and should be viewed on its own accord.
After an opening that very much speaks to its love of all things 90s trash – an Elizabeth Berkley cameo never goes astray – Shell lays its focus on actress Samantha Lake (Elisabeth Moss), a former television sitcom mid-level success type who’s hoping to reinject herself into the industry. At 40-years-old, Samantha has practically been put out to pasture amongst her peers, her former roles don’t impress those she hopes to date, and, perhaps worst of all, she’s losing roles like that of a divorced mother to 20-something models like Chloe Benson (Kaia Gerber), who Samantha just happened to babysit in her youth.
With both her career looking as if it’s unable to start again and her skin crippled with psoriasis, Samantha’s seeming last chance lies with Zoe Shannon (Kate Hudson, clearly enjoying her character’s sociopathic tendencies), an ultra-glamorous beauty wellness expert and spokeswoman for the health brand Shell. Shell promises to enhance the individual user’s appearance by essentially stunting the ageing process; Zoe shocks during a filmed interview when she states that she’s in her 60s. Given the evident nods to trash auteurs like Paul Verhoeven throughout, it’s probably not a coincidence on Minghella’s end that Hudson’s role is very much channeling a mentality similar to her mother Goldie Hawn’s 1992 black comedy Death Becomes Her – though Hudson is arguably embodying that of Hawn’s co-star Isabella Rossellini, mixed with Sharon Stone’s wicked femme fatale from Basic Instinct.
Hudson practically walks away with the film, and even though we know we shouldn’t root for her in any manner possible, the actress is so grand as the questionably shaded antagonist against Moss’s more straight-laced heroine, that we miss her bitchy retorts when she’s absent. That’s not to say Moss isn’t giving us a good show, her character just doesn’t have the same kind of sauce as Hudson’s Zoe. Why the two cohorts start to turn on each other stems from Samantha’s belief that a disfiguring side effect of using Shell is behind certain high profile disappearances – namely that of Chloe – and she’s willing to expose such. If she doesn’t lose any of her limbs first, of course.
With Minghella’s mentality very much set from the get-go, Shell doesn’t seek to operate on a subtle level. Corporations are evil and Hollywood can kill you are the surface level “messages” on hand here, but commenting on such doesn’t appear to be his modus operandi. Instead, with Hudson’s go-for-broke performance, a cameo from a Showgirls performer, the film’s blend of retro and futuristic aesthetics, and the Dark Castle logo adorning the opening credits – the entertainment production label earning prominence in the late 90s/early 2000s for their genre efforts like Ghost Ship, Gothika, House of Wax, and Orphan – Minghella looks to honour a certain subsect of cinema from years gone by. Shell takes some big swings (where this story escalates to is truly wild), and though they don’t all land, you have to admire its audacity.
THREE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Shell is screening as part of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, running between September 5th and 15th, 2024. For more information about the festival, head to the official site here.
