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Skin Deep (Aus meiner Haut)

Skin Deep (Aus meiner Haut)

Movie · 2022 · 8 people

Alex Schaad directed the 2022 German science-fiction drama and love story Skin Deep (German title Aus meiner Haut). The film had its world premiere in September 2022 at the Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Queer Lion, and it opened in German cinemas in early February 2023.

The story begins as Tristan (Jonas Dassler) and Leyla (Mala Emde) travel to a remote island, invited by Leyla's childhood friend Stella, hoping to save their strained relationship. There people temporarily swap bodies in a ritual to see the world through someone else's eyes. The couple is first paired with Mo (Dimitrij Schaad) and Fabienne (Maryam Zaree), and Leyla is happy in a different woman's body, but the swap is cut short when Tristan cannot perform as a musician in Mo's body. Leyla is then offered a swap with Roman (Thomas Wodianka), a man grieving the recent death of his partner, and, freed from her old body's limits, she has never been happier. When she refuses to go back, things threaten to spiral. Edgar Selge, Adam Bousdoukos and Louise von Plessen also appear.

It runs about 104 minutes; Alex Schaad wrote the script with Dimitrij Schaad.

DirectorAlex Schaad

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Maryam Zaree Maryam Zaree Actor · 43 years old Fabienne Adam Bousdoukos Adam Bousdoukos Actor · 52 years old Kapitän Jonas Dassler Mala Emde Dimitrij Schaad Edgar Selge Sema Poyraz Thomas Wodianka

Also in the cast: Louise von Plessen

Titles sharing this cast

Through different eyes

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Skin Deep uses the body-swap idea not as a science-fiction gimmick but as a lens on a relationship drama, and that choice sets it apart from similar films. What matters is not the concept itself but how it exposes the crack between a couple. The casting pairs are the backbone of the structure: making the same character believable in different bodies is a real test of both acting and editing. My reservation is that the script leans too hard on its own thesis. Towards the final stretch especially, ideas get ahead of characters, and the film starts underlining its question rather than dramatising it. Even so, it is a bold, distinctive piece that carries its high concept seriously.

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

The film also asks where identity sits in the body through the lens of gender. Leyla feeling freer first in another woman's body and then in a man's touches directly on the debate over whether identity is a mould given at birth or something found through living. Winning the Queer Lion in Venice shows that this reading resonated in festival circles. What makes it interesting is that the film approaches the issue not as a manifesto but through a couple's relationship and a grieving man's loss. The tension between personal happiness and responsibility to a partner leaves a thought-provoking question about relationships today.

Family Viewer Asks whether the whole household can watch it; cares about humour and heart.

This is not a family film. It is about an adult couple's shaken relationship, a search for identity and grief. The body-swap idea might sound like a fun fairy tale to children, but the tone here is reflective and heavy. It is not a good choice for children or younger teens. It is a film for adults or older teenagers to watch and then talk about.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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