I enjoyed the setup for this film so much when I didn’t know what it was about. Honestly, I assumed it’d be a body horror film about a skincare compound that causes human meltdowns. In that it’s not that at all and that’s ok… but what it tried to be felt a bit too messy and it doesn’t find a consistent voice for what it’s trying to be.

The film is about a skincare queen opening her own business to sell product and facials to the Hollywood elite. Unfortunately a competing business opens next door and someone has started a smear campaign against her.

As a film about an entrepreneur trying to start her own business and running into suspicious competition, I rather enjoyed this film. I still thought it was going to turn into a skin meltdown horror though. When it becomes clear it wasn’t going that route, I was still intrigued by the mysterious psychological thriller that it became.

For awhile, anyway. The film runs a solid 20 minutes too long and introduces way too many red herrings / extraneous characters who are up to their own shenanigans. As it operates as a mystery, I was curious who created each problem… but I’m not really sure there’s a single, satisfactory answer for that after the film runs in circles in the final act.

I liked some of its implied themes and satire… but I’m just not sure these disparate ideas and themes really gel. I think there was just too much going on that didn’t feel cohesive so I started to get restless. I wanted to like this film more… but it loses ground and focus and I got tired of it.

That said, Elizabeth Banks does a bang-up job as the lead and her supporting cast were certainly game as well. I wish it had been a little more wicked, trashy, or serious… more of one direction and less of all the others. But it has merit… it just needed some editing.

Score: 74