Jamie Bell in Skin (A24)

From the get-go, director Guy Nattiv’s visceral depiction of neo-Nazi Bryon Widner’s escape from his white supremacist surrogate family demands a reaction from the audience.

The film begins with a heated confrontation between black activists and skinheads, which turns into an all-out brawl in no time. Widner (Jamie Bell, the glue that holds the movie together) chases down a black teenager and beats him senselessly before taking a bite out of his ear. (Bell’s Widner is a bolt of lightning; you never know what will set him off.) This is but one example of Skin’s onscreen brutality, although over the course of the film, most of the violence is inflicted upon the members (including Widner) of the Vinlanders Social Club by their leader (Bill Camp) and his wife (Vera Farmiga), who go by the terms of endearment Pa and Ma.

The director elaborates on his 2019 Oscar-winning short, which shares the same name as his feature film, although Nattiv takes a different approach to examining extremism this time. Whereas the 20-minute film was fictional, the new one is freely based on the reformation of the real-life Widner, and is more convincing as a character study.

Arguably the hardest sequences to watch—though there are several contenders—centers on the laser removal of countless tattoos camouflaging Widner’s face and entire body; the real-life subject endured the erasure of hundreds of tattoos. The film keeps track of the number of procedures with a countdown: “Day 60. Removal 4: Knuckles.” These squirm-inducing moments, interspersed early on, foreshadow Widner’s fate, and they also offer relief and hope, giving viewers a hint that there is an exit out of the claustrophobic, nihilistic mindset of the cult. The story line likewise offers momentary respites from the tension and poisonous ideology of the Vinlanders Social Club when Widner begins dating Julie (Danielle Macdonald), a single mother who has been distancing herself and her three young daughters from hate groups. (He meets her at Nordic Fest.)

Even though viewers may be familiar with other films based on factual subjects, such as Betrayed (1988), featuring Debra Winger as an FBI agent who infiltrates a group of white supremists, or The Believer (2001) starring Ryan Gosling, Skin is unquestionably relevant. Therefore it is a bit disappointing that this account overemphasizes action and falls short in detailing the relationship between the white Widner and the black activist Daryle Lamont Jenkins (Mike Colter), who aids Widner’s breaking away.

Their interactions reveal only glimpses of the trust-building that had been involved—they start off as adversaries and end as colleagues. Instead, the screenplay emphasizes—beatdown by beatdown—Widner’s attempts to flee from the white separatists and the ways in which they retaliate. An inevitable showdown awaits him but not an insightful psychological breakthrough as the script has Widner keeping his fears and insights mainly to himself.

While the film avoids placing Jenkins on a pedestal as a black savior to a lost white man, he does have a story worth telling: his Philadelphia-based One People’s Project, whose mission is to research and report on far right-wing groups, has rehabilitated numerous extremists. Perhaps another emphasis wouldn’t produce as strong a reaction among viewers as much as a right hook to the eye.