Upamanyu Biswas
In his directorial debut, ‘Skincare,’ Austin Peters tells the twisted story of renowned beautician Hope Goldman, who is preparing to launch a new skincare line to take her reputation and career to the next level. However, when a new boutique opens next to her store, Hope is anxious that a rival, Angel Vergara, is looking to tear her down by sabotaging her business. The beautician concocts a plan with the aid of Jordan, a life coach, to get ahead of the competition and find out the truth behind who threatens to upend her life and destroy her image in the public eye.
The neo-noir thriller film delves into a black comedy narrative that explores the acidic nature of building a fake exterior to sell the notion of success. Although Hope spends her time catering to the demands of her Los Angeles clients, a darker and disturbing reality surfaces underneath the golden sheen of the city’s sunshine aesthetic. With themes of fame and obsession driving the narrative, it touches upon several real-life aspects of Tinseltown, including Hope’s dwindling career as her looks fade with every passing year. Therefore, a deep dive into the beautician’s genesis and the film’s inspirations illustrates how closely they mirror the real world and whether they happen to be based on a true story. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Skincare is Loosely Inspired By an Actual Case of Sabotage
‘Skincare’ is a fictional story crafted by director Austin Peters, who co-wrote the script with Sam Freilich and Deering Regan. The Los Angeles thriller places an emphasis on beauty and exterior, which forms the basis of its central themes revolving around falsehoods and presenting a lie. The film loosely draws upon the real-life story of an aesthetician named Dawn DaLuise, who was accused of a murder-for-hire plot against her rival, Gabriel Suarez. DaLuise was worried that her competitor was harassing her with threatening messages in an attempt to curtail her successful business. However, this was later found to be a plot conceived by her friends Edward Feinstein and Nicholas Prugo.
According to reports, Dawn DaLuise was stalked for several months by an anonymous tormentor, who would frequently send her threatening messages on her phone. Believing it was the work of her rival, Gabriel Suarez, the woman sent a message to her friend, Edward Feinstein, saying, “I found someone Whois [sic] going to take Gabriel out. His names [sic] Chris Geile and he’s an ex Detroit lion quarterback… he’s on my fb page.”
Soon, the police landed at her doorstep and arrested her for a murder-for-hire conspiracy. It was there that DaLuise began suspecting Feinstein of being the one behind her torment. Both Feinstein and Prugo were apprehended and, in 2016, sentenced to 350 hours of community service and three years of probation on stalking misdemeanor charges. They were also restricted from coming close to DaLuise and her two daughters and to stop any contact between them for ten years. In the film, Hope Goldman goes through a similar ordeal when she discovers a potential stalker trying to sabotage her operation amidst the launch of her new skincare line.
The Authentic Portrayal of the Real-Life Beautician Behind Hope Goldman
As the fictional aesthetician protagonist of ‘Skincare,‘ Hope Goldman finds herself in the middle of a massive sabotage plot that she is convinced is being orchestrated by her rival, Angel Vergara. The character was created by Austin Peters, Sam Freilich, and Deering Regan while penning the screenplay. It has ties to beautician Dawn DaLuise, whose life and career form a loose basis for the film’s narrative. However, those connections only serve as a jumping point within the film as the writers take a completely new trajectory to craft their own fictionalized version of events.
Right before the film’s release, DaLuise caught a glimpse of the trailer, which sparked memories of her harrowing trials in the past. In an interview with CNN, she said, “My phone was a receptacle for all sorts of harassment… during my ordeal, so when (all these messages) popped up, and the first thing I see is a trailer about my life, it caused me to revisit a bit of that trauma.“ She was impressed by the film’s accuracy in portraying the incidents engulfing her, stating, “I was stunned and in awe of how precise everything (was), from the location (to) the mannerisms and the way in which our salons were both decked out. Somebody really did their homework and did it well.”
However, Elizabeth Banks, who plays Hope, was not aware of the real-life ties of ‘Skincare‘ until much later in the process. As such, she latched on to the character in her own way, relating mainly to her vulnerability and loneliness. She told Deadline, “The business is her life. So I have always found that characters who are singularly focused like that just become sort of ridiculous by their very nature because they’re so devoted to what they’ve achieved. The stress on her was gonna build and build and build and have these sort of violent consequences. I love that about it.”
Therefore, the character has several facets to draw upon when decoding her genesis, the most prominent being her connection to Dawn DaLuise and her sabotage case. It allows a sense of reality to seep into Hope’s roots while taking a completely new path in the semi-autobiographical narrative presented in ‘Skincare.’ While she may be fictional in conception, those real-life elements help grant her believability and an added layer of suspense, which aids the story in moving into uncharted territory.
The Sunshine Noir Aesthetic of Skincare
While the film’s central premise is based around Dawn DaLuise’s real-life story, the narrative deviates from her sabotage case. Director Austin Peters and his co-writers were more drawn to embodying a neo-noir story that has its own beating heart. As such, the film operates as a hardboiled crime narrative sprinkled with a healthy dose of black comedy to create a world that feels out-of-sync, just like Hope’s crumbling life and career. The filmmaker was intrigued by the idea of exploring themes of excess relating to superficial beauty and inauthenticity, which are heavily leveraged in the entertainment business. To that end, a Sunshine Noir style was adopted during the filmmaking, combining a sparkling environment with a dark, decaying reality underneath.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the director said, “Specifically, I had been thinking a lot about image — about how image drives success and is often valued more than success itself. These themes of authenticity, beauty, and superficiality playing out in this very real and often very gritty environment really excited me. I love the noir genre and the idea of doing this ‘Sunshine Noir’ in the place I grew up in, set in the world of beauty, sparked the creation of this film.” Peters cited movies like ‘Double Indemnity,’ ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice,‘ and the works of James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Philip Marlowe, and Patricia Highsmith to have inspired the film’s look, feel, and tone.
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