Shell Review: Elisabeth Moss and Kate Hudson Save Max Minghella’s Mixed Bag of a Cautionary Body Horror

Max Minghella’s Shell, marking his second directorial effort after the Elle Fanning-starred coming-of-age drama Teen Spirit, jumps on the bandwagon of the recent movie trends about beauty standards. This includes Uglies, The Ugly Stepsister and of course, The Substance, where the latter sets the benchmark for effectively blending a satirical, yet cautionary tale about the price to pay for looking youthful and beautiful with the Cronenbergian body-horror trope. Shell happens to follow that same path, complete with an experimental beauty procedure.

While The Substance uses the cloning method through a DIY serum injection, Shell imagines how the procedure is done using the DNA of a crustacean, since this aquatic arthropod possesses anti-ageing mechanisms. The title of the movie refers to the eponymous wellness company overseen by the sixtysomething beauty mogul, Zoe Shannon (Kate Hudson), who looks decades younger. Her state-of-the-art cosmetic technology has helped many women not only look their best but also reverse their ageing process.

Despite the popularity that has become a trend, Samantha (Elisabeth Moss) shows no interest in following the same footsteps by going for the procedure. She prefers to keep it real, despite her profession as a fortysomething actress, who used to headline a sitcom, is now on the line. Showbiz always has a thing about ageism, evidently, in the earlier audition scene where she lost a role to a younger influencer, Chloe Benson (Cindy Crawford’s real-life daughter, Kaia Gerber). Ironically, Samantha knows Chloe because she used to babysit her.

Samantha’s days as an actress are numbered if she remains steadfast in upholding her principle, unless she’s willing to change the way she looks. It doesn’t help either when her on-and-off psoriasis even jeopardises her social life, which, at one point, her date can’t stand her skin flare-ups. And that means visiting Shell would be the only way to solve her current situation.

The first half is promising, detailing how a reluctant actress like Samantha ultimately succumbs to undergoing the cosmetic procedure, especially after facing rejections both professionally and personally. And credit goes to Elisabeth Moss for nailing such a role, who grows increasingly insecure about herself, forcing her to break her very principles because she has no other choice. This leads to the treatment at the spa-like clinic, and the next thing she knows, her psoriasis has disappeared.

Her confidence rises and everything’s great, but if you are familiar enough with this kind of premise, you know that the inevitable thing called a side effect is bound to happen sooner or later. That side effect in question comes in the form of the persistent, unusually dark pimple-like growth visible on her skin.

Working from The Passenger‘s Jack Stanley’s screenplay, Minghella does a good job in a few scenes, including a grisly prologue revolving around a woman in the mansion played by former Showgirls star, Elizabeth Berkley, in a memorable cameo appearance and how her post-Shell treatment turns, well, grotesque. Apart from Moss’s engaging lead performance, she and Hudson’s Zoe play off each other well, where the latter scores in a wickedly sinister part of a scheming beauty mogul.

The only downside about them is that the movie misses the opportunity to delve further into their sexual tension in a potential Fatal Attraction-style erotic thriller mould, where the story hinted at in the first place before dropping out altogether. Minghella’s attempt to satirise the social commentary about showbiz and how industrial expectations perceived beauty standards are mostly surface-level, lacking Coralie Fargeat’s astute storytelling traits seen in The Substance.

The second half is a mixed bag, particularly when Minghella begins to embrace the schlocky, B-horror vibe wholeheartedly, right down to the gory finale. If it weren’t for Elisabeth Moss and Kate Hudson, this movie would have been a hollow, empty shell of a body horror.