Skin in the Game is a 2019 drama about a fifteen year old girl who finds herself submerged in the horrific underground world of human trafficking.
There’s no easy way to tell a story like this, and nor should there be. The reality behind movies about sexual slavery and forced labor are about some the worst of what we as a species are capable of, which is saying a lot. This is an industry that continues to thrive with billions of dollars at play, so it’s not going away anytime soon, so really, any movie that can shine a little more light on the tragedy deserves some praise, which is where we are at with writer and director Adisa‘s entry into the lot, Skin in the Game. It’s appropriately dark and mostly treats the subject matter with respect but can’t avoid being progressively exploitative and simplistic even as it strives to keep on message.
Beginning with a tense moment of escape, we meet Lena (Erica Ash), a black woman with a haunted past who risks her own life to help a teen girl (Stefanée Martin) find her way out of the dangerous grip of a cruel pimp. Lena runs a halfway house for young girls she’s trying to keep off the streets. We then skip to blonde high schooler Dani (Sammi Hanratty), who chats with a handsome guy online, keeping it secret from her hardworking mother Sharon (Elisabeth Harnois). Naturally, he’s not at all who he claims to be, Dani soon kidnapped right off the street and forced into sexual slavery by a slick house mother named Eve (Angélica Celaya), who runs a kind of underground brothel. Frantic for help, Sharon seeks out Lena, a former schoolmate with some past between them.
There are loads of good intentions with Skin in the Game, the film trying to tell an emotional story that is, according to the film itself, based on true events. Lena is a rough and ready badass with her own stake in the trade, having been there herself. She’s a compelling character well played by Ash who has a powerful presence in all this, donning a black leather jacket and all kinds of smoldering ferocity. She is plenty good to watch, the best reason in fact to tune in at all.
However, the rest of the film doesn’t have the same weight, even as it works hard to take us to some jarring depths, not willing to go as far down the rabbit hole as it feels it should, sort of glossing over the horror in favor of a more rudimentary invitation into this terrifying world. This leaves us with a number of propped up moments that are trying to be authentic but end up more artificial the more it plays along with dialogue that doesn’t quite ring genuine. You can see what Adisa is after and there’s no lack of sincerity, the cast and crew diving deep with their commitment to it all in trying to tell an important story, yet it’s sometimes frustrating to be held at arm’s length when we should be pulled in further.
Presenting the issue like a prime time television crime drama, Skin in the Game has all the moving parts that could and should inspire the right questions but not the impact it intends with trope-ish characters and situations that feel a bit like a retread. I applaud the filmmakers for doing what they can in giving this some exposure and there’s no doubt it has merit for a lot of what it puts on screen, but it never quite gels with the gut punch something like this needs.