Skin / Sophie Okonedo, best known for playing Don Cheadle’s character’s wife in Hotel Rwanda, portrays Sandra Laing, a black girl born to two white Afrikaner parents in Skin, a moving film based on a true story. Because the setting is South Africa in the early 1990s, the apartheid-wrought country does not make it easy for her. Neither do her parents.

The strength of Skin lies in its story. Through what is in one scene described as polygenetic inheritance, shopkeepers Abraham and Sannie Laing (Sam Neill and Alice Krige) give birth to their second child, Sandra, who turns out to be black, even though they are white. They go through many trials as they try to give their child all the benefits of a Caucasian citizen, even going so far as to classify her in the government system as a white person. But when Sandra falls in love with a black man, she begins to question exactly how she wishes to be racially classified. Abraham strongly disagrees with her desires. As he tells his wife at one point, “She will marry an Afrikaner because that’s what she is. Afrikans!”

There are moments in the movie that are genuinely shocking in their depictions of white supremacy. Pencils are inserted into afros to test whether the participant’s hair is black. A young Sandra mixes bleaches and cleaning agents in her bathroom washbasin and rubs it on herself in an effort to lighten her skin; of course, it results in chemical burns. On a first date, her potential suitor tells her, “You don’t have to feel bad about looking like a colored. It’s okay with me. Really.”

Director Anthony Fabian even manages to insert moments of humor within all the suffocating tragedy. When Sandra attempts to get documents from a testy administrative clerk, she implores the woman to help: “You have a kind face.” “No, I don’t,” the woman replies. “I have a fat face. People can’t tell the difference.”

But occasionally the film crosses the line between intense drama and misguided melodrama. When Sandra’s father finds out his daughter is dating a black man, he literally comes out of the house with guns blazing, before nailing boards to her windows. He then recruits his son; they arm themselves (complete with a Rambo-style gun-loading scene) and head into town to hunt down their prey. Although these events may have happened in real life, there had to have been subtler ways to pull off those moments.

The performances are adequate at best. Okonedo has two modes here, fulfilled and distressed. When she’s happy, she smiles with teeth and when she’s in emotional pain, she looks like she’s going to just uncontrollably bawl. Not making the job any easier is the fact that the role requires her to go from the teenager to full grown adult with very little make-up. She looks a touch ridiculous pretending to be a coquettish college student. (Okonedo will be 40 next year.)

Neill overacts as usual; the man is best when pitted against T-Rexes, not humans. Only Krige makes a lasting impression. Best known for playing the villainous Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact, she imbues the role with a stately sense of regality, even though she is a simple shopkeeper’s wife. A heated exchange with her husband on his deathbed is devastating as she denies her husband a final request. “You made your choice,” she says as years of bitterness threaten to boil over.

Glaring flaws aside, moments like these ring true and make Skin a most potent depiction of racism and a South Africa not very far in the past. Fabian has a genuine talent for telling stories that move as well as create sympathy for characters, even amid inconsistent casting and performances. It will be fascinating to see where his career as a director takes him.

Note: Skin is just one of the features being presented as part of the American Film Institute’s AFI Project: 20/20 at the Doris Duke Theatre. AFI Project 20/20 is a touring film festival with filmmakers seeking to foster cross-cultural understanding, promote appreciation of shared values, diverse perspectives and underscore the importance of free expression. For more information check [honoluluacademy.org] or [afifest.withoutabox.com].

---