Watch In Her Skin For Free

Powerful

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The 2009 Australian film "In Her Skin" is based on a true story of a mentally unstable woman and her obsession with a neighbor girls perfect life. Its a story of two families dealing with heartbreak, class structures, self esteem and who is to blame.Guy Pearce and Miranda Otto play Mike and Elizabeth Barber the upper middle class parents of Rachel, a 15 year old Dancer, who goes missing after accepting a job from an estranged older friend named Caroline, played fearlessly by Ruth Bradley. The girls exist at opposite ends of the class and popularity spectrum. Rachel is young and beautiful with and equally beautiful boyfriend. She has two loving parents and a normal home life. While Caroline, who is in her early to mid 20s, lives alone in an apartment always on the brink of some kind of mental breakdown. Her parents are divorced and her father has long given up hope of having a "normal" daughter. He has had learn to just deal with her craziness after having to bail her out of situations her whole life. Caroline works a dull and dreary office job with little to no motivation to do anything more with her life. Rachel has been a sort of obsession and role model of hers every since she babysat for her years back. An idealized version of what she wish she could be. Caroline feels trapped and cursed to roam the earth in her overweight and unattractive body. She is unloved and unwanted. We can only watch as the clock ticks forward to an enviable breakdown. After Rachel doesn't return home one afternoon. Her parent start to worry and call her friends and the dance studio with no luck. They go to the police but are devastated to be told that Rachel must have ran away or is just out on a bender and will probably show up in a day or two. With all of the other more important cases, they can't be wasting their precious recourses on a missing teenage girl. Mike and Elizabeth do eventually find an investigator dedicated to finding what happen to Rachel and it all leads back to Caroline.The film is uniquely structured in that it is split up into three sections dealing with the individual characters view points and personal struggles. After a brief intro we start with a title card "Mike and Elizabeth", Then go on to "Caroline", then finally "Rachel". The resulting story is raw, honest, and heartbreaking. It is superbly acted by all involved and unlike most Hollywood studio movies doesn't offer any easy answers.

When I first saw this film – a true story – which features the graphic depiction of the murder of 15-year old Rachel Elizabeth Barber, I wondered how her parents could sit through it.However, in an interview, Rachel's mother, Elizabeth Barber, explained that she and her husband, "…didn't want people to shy away from what murder really is".This is one of the most harrowing movies you are likely to see.Rachel, played by Kate Bell, disappears after attending a dance class. The story follows her parents, Elizabeth and Mike Barber (Miranda Otto and Guy Pearce) as they attempt to find her, and convince the police that she hasn't simply run away. The film then cuts to the woman who has actually murdered their daughter, Caroline Reed Robertson, played in searing style by Ruth Bradley. Caroline came to know the family as a neighbour years before; a chance encounter that changed their lives.Combined with all the little details of family life, and the reactions of the younger children, Miranda Otto and Guy Pierce as the mother and father are so real that this film is often painful to watch.Sam Neil who plays Caroline's father, David Reid, has real presence on the screen, he is one of those actors who don't have to do much to steal a scene: the less he does the better he is. He projects a sense of exasperation and anxiety as Caroline's father.Ruth Bradley as Caroline is mesmerising. Overweight and hating her life and her body, she is nonetheless totally fixated on herself to the exclusion of just about all else. We see the mounting jealousy she feels for the seemingly perfect Rachel until she eventually murders her and tries to assume her identity. This film shows how the cocoon of safety, support and insularity embodied in normal family life can be shattered so easily by a malevolent, outside force.Every aspect of first-time director Simone North's film is brilliantly handled. From the incisive script to the interesting Melbourne locations, the film demonstrates the level of maturity that Australian films have attained today.The crime happened in 1999, and a postscript to the film is the fact that Caroline Reid Robertson is now eligible for parole. After seeing this movie and news reports about the case, you have to wonder whether the Victorian Parole Board is capable of getting this right; their track record in recent times has been abysmal with eleven murders committed by parolees in less than three years – one can only hope.

Australian screenwriter, producer and director Simone North's feature film debut which she wrote, is based on a novel called "Perfect Victim" from 2003 by Australian writer Elisabeth Southall and UK journalist Megan Norris. It was screened at the Brisbane International Film Festival in 2010 and is an Australian production which was shot on location in Melbourne, Australia and produced by producer Tony Cavanaugh. It tells the story about Rachel Elizabeth Barber, a 15-year-old dancer from Melbourne who disappears on a spring day in 1999. Her father Mike and her mother Elizabeth contacts the local authorities, but as there is no evidence of something criminal having happened to Rachel no search is instigated by the police and Mike and Elizabeth has to begin investigating on their own to find their eldest child.Subtly and intimately directed by Australian filmmaker Simone North, this finely paced fictional tale which is narrated by the female protagonist and from multiple viewpoints, draws a gripping portrayal of an Australian family and their strive to locate their missing teenage daughter. While notable for it's colorful milieu depictions, fine production design by Australian production designer Peta Lawson and cinematography by Australian cinematographer Jules O'Loughlin, this dialog-driven, narrative-driven and heartrending thriller-drama which examines humane and psychological themes, depicts a nuanced study of character and contains a great score by Australian composer Ben Frost which emphasizes it's lingering atmosphere.This authentic and unsettling story which explicitly describes the complex personality of a disturbed woman who is marred by her self-perception and conflicting relationship with her parents, and the hardships of a loving mother and father, is impelled and reinforced by it's cogent narrative structure, substantial character development, the fine acting performances by English-born Australian actor Guy Pearce, Australian actress Miranda Otto, New Zealand actor Sam Neill and the profound acting performance by Irish-Canadian actress Ruth Bradley. An incisive, empathic and lyrical directorial debut which is inspired by real events that took place in Melbourne, Australia in the late 20th century.

This is a very intense thriller and drama movie. Carolyn (Ruth Bradley) scary me, Miranda Otto she so perfect on the character of mother. Great actors, intense history and good direction.The film is based on the true story of Melbourne teenager Rachel Barber who was murdered in 1999 by Caroline Reed Robertson. I knew this going into the film and surprisingly, it doesn't take anything away from this thriller.The performances by Guy Pearce and Miranda Otto are painful to watch at times because they're so believable. The way in which they cope with their daughter's disappearance is a stark contrast with Sam Neil's performance as Caroline's father. He sees Caroline as a nuisance.