Skin tight.

Mysterious Skin * Directed by Gregg Araki * Written by Araki, based on the novel by Scott Heim * Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brady Corbet, Elisabeth Shue * Tartan Films/TLA Releasing

In Mysterious Skin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt gives a career-making performance that should catapult the former TV child star (3rd Rock From the Sun) to leading-man status--a leap akin to the one Leonardo DiCaprio made with What's Eating Gilbert Grape, only without the crutch of playing someone who's lovably retarded.

Fresh from his role as a Mormon homophobe in Latter Days, Gordon-Levitt plays Neil, a gay teen in a small Midwestern town. Nell sells himself to older men at the local park--a common occurrence never so matter-of-factly presented on film. His life's been messed up since he was 8, when a baseball coach made Nell his sex toy, beginning with a forced sex act on a kitchen floor covered with Froot Loops. With his deep eyed glare and abrupt, determined movements, Gordon-Levitt makes it clear that Nell is no helpless victim--in his screwed-up fashion, he believes promiscuity gives him control.

When he moves to New York, however, it's no trick in the park. The city's seamy side overpowers him, and Nell slips into a self-destructive nosedive. At that point Gordon-Levitt's hard shell cracks, and the violence and anguish that the young man and the film have long held back come spilling out in a blisteringly painful sequence.

Parallel to Neil's story is that of asexual nerd Brian (Brady Corbet), another wounded teen, who believes "lost time" from his childhood can be explained by an alien abduction--an obsession that has taken over his life the way sex rules Neil's. It's clear throughout the film that once these two find one another, all their defensive fantasies will be swept away. That final catharsis--with just a hint that healing will begin--is devastatingly powerful.

Beautifully photographed and tightly written, Mysterious Skin is as much a coup for writer-director Gregg Araki as for Gordon-Levitt. It's more gritty and literal than the hauntingly lyrical Scott Helm novel on which it's based, but the considerable compression serves the difficult material well. In fact, it's so well-crafted--with the kind of rich characterizations and mature storytelling that Araki's nervy early films (The Living End, The Doom Generation) mocked rather than aspired to--that it should open up a world of opportunities for its auteur. Araki has made a move similar to the one Gus Van Sant made with To Die For--without, one hopes, the prospect of a Psycho remake in his future.