HARLEM FF REVIEW: THIN SKIN Sees the Melancholy Side of Absurdity

One thing absurdist comedies rarely get around to depicting in any sort of empathetic way is the sheer depression that living in the midst of ridiculousness would induce. We may laugh at Idiocracy and Office Space, for example, but as many of us now know, living through them sucks and is truly dispiriting. At the same time, so much of it is indeed so utterly stupid that we’d be remiss not to laugh occasionally. Charles Mudede’s Thin Skin, adapted from Ahamefule J. Oluo’s autbiographical, experimental jazz musical stage performance Now I’m Fine, nails both. It’s imbued with a deep sense of melancholy, but never forgets to laugh at the sheer inanity of some of life’s obstacles.

Oluo plays a version of himself, known mostly as Aham because nobody else wants to try pronouncing the long version. While probably based on real life, it’s also a perfect metaphor, with his Nigerian name (that translates to taking pride in one’s family name) shortened by western society into the phonetic sound of a throat-clearing to get someone’s attention. Aham is a large, athletic-looking man who could seem very imposing, until he opens his mouth and invariably comes off defensive and whiny. As a divorced man crashing in his sister’s downstairs laundry room, he has come by such a tone organically. Aham’s routinely late to his soulless telephone collections office job, and mostly comes alive blowing into his jazz trumpet at nights. (Note: you do not have to love jazz trumpet to enjoy this movie, but it probably helps.)

The lives of Aham, his sister Ijeoma (Ijeoma Oluo) and their ditsy white mother Susan (Annette Toutonghi) are disrupted by a letter from long-absent dad. Aham decides to call the phone number enclosed therein, only to learn his father is extremely disappointed in him for considering music to be a career. With his personal life also in ruins, Aham decides to actually apply himself at the office job. Until he suddenly comes down with a mysterious illness that manifests itself in increasingly disturbing ways. Though the screenplay is based on an actual year of Oluo’s life, the timing feels prescient. Because who, in 2020 America, can’t relate to the fear of accidentally catching a previously unknown disease, all while everyone in authority around you appears to be a complete idiot working from a vacuous corporate script?

That the ailment keeps causing errant skin cells to seal up his mouth and urethra in particular is no accident: modern society is taking away his voice and masculinity. And it pointedly isn’t white society, by the way – both his cliche-loving boss and his disappointed father are black and proud, while his oblivious doctor (Hari Kondabolu) is Indian. The only white guy who figures in day-to-day life is one who reports directly to Aham at work: a former classmate obsessed with gossip and pathologically unable to understand why manners matter in a customer service job. And then there’s mom, whose general dingbattery (numerous pet birds and reptiles, whose terrariums make for great set dressing) and helium voice mask a surprising world-weariness that occaasionaly burst forth with wisdom.

Adapted from what was essentially a one-person show by Oluo, director Charles Mudede, and Oluo’s wife Lindy West (yes, THAT Lindy West), Thin Skin rarely shows its roots, save for a climactic musical number that oddly treats its protagonist like a spectator. The characters never feel like creations of one man’s mind; even in the small moments, they’re fully realized with evident inner lives. And none of the action feels stagebound, except when a stage is organic to the tale. Misty morning shots of Seattle, sterile offices, a doctor’s room that feels like part of a multimedia workspace, and of course the crowded laundry room that counts as home all have their own character, with a foot each in the strange and the sad.

I mentioned above that you don’t have to love jazz trumpet to love the movie. You also don’t have to be a half-Nigerian divorcee with an absent father to relate to it. Sometimes when the world has gone crazy, the only rational response is to make joyful noise. After that, like the stage show, comes the reassurance: Now, I’m fine.