Being a woman in this world is hard. From a young age, we’re taught to be polite, stand up straight with our shoulders back, and most of all, be pretty. Put on makeup, style your hair. Women are continuously held up to a warped beauty standard and once we start to show signs of age, we’re often dismissed and discarded. You can have all the plastic surgery and use the best beauty creams, but you can’t stop aging, or ultimately, death. We’ve spent decades trying, and often failing, to embody the unrealistic beauty queen that society expects us to be. Movies, particularly horror movies, have attempted to portray the struggle that women go through on a daily basis to be pretty enough, and the damage that is often done to our psyche as a result. Last year, Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance brilliantly offered smart social commentary and the brutal personal experience of its protagonist to dissect society’s expectations of women and beauty. Max Mingella’s sophomore feature film, the dark comedy Shell, attempts to take a similar look at women’s endless attempts to achieve acceptable beauty standards and the realization that it’s impossible to stop the aging process. Already being hailed as this year’s The Substance, Shell isn’t quite as clever as it could be on the inside, but at least it’s shiny and fun on the surface.
Director Max Minghella and actor Elisabeth Moss on the set of SHELL. Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
Written by Jack Stanley (The Passenger) and directed by Minghella, Shell reunites the director with his co-star from The Handmaid’s Tale, Elisabeth Moss. Moss plays Samantha Lake, a struggling actress who is barely in her 40s, but is already being told by casting agents that she should consider doing something to combat the signs of aging to make herself more marketable. She is sent to the Shell clinic, which is run by beauty guru and CEO Zoe Shannon, played by Kate Hudson (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery). Zoe is a svelte, blonde, and stunningly gorgeous woman in her 60s, who looks at least 20 years younger, and who is laser-focused on her company’s “brand.”
Kate Hudson as Zoe Shannon in SHELL. Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
There is no denying Moss is an extraordinarily talented actress who relied heavily on her dynamic facial expressions in The Handmaid’s Tale. She uses this to her advantage in Shell, portraying Samantha as a genuinely frustrated, frumpy wannabe actress who dresses in oversized clothes and can’t get an acting gig — until she visits the Shell clinic. After just one treatment, she looks younger, has more vitality, and becomes one of the beautiful people she thought she could never be when she moved to L.A.. She’s invited to lavish parties with the other exquisite, desirable people in Hollywood and easily lands acting jobs. But at what cost?
L-R: Kate Hudson as Zoe Shannon and Elisabeth Moss as Samantha Lake in SHELL. Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
Hudson effortlessly manifests the bold, beautiful, increasingly bitchy Zoe, who watches over Samantha after her transformation, and even seems to become her friend. It’s only after women who have visited the Shell clinic start to go missing, and Samantha is thrust into a world of paranoia, that Zoe reveals her true self. Moss expertly conveys the panic and inner fear Samantha feels once she realizes she doesn’t know who she can trust while potentially giving up her bodily autonomy.
Drew Daniel’s (Anora) stylish cinematography gives Shell a chic exterior, using soft filters after Samantha’s treatment to make her and the world around her look younger and more vibrant. Mirren Gordon-Crozier, who was the costume designer on Minghella’s Teen Spirit (2018), lends some extravagant designs to the film which enhance the overwhelmingly sophisticated aesthetic.
Elisabeth Moss as Samantha Lake in SHELL. Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
The film takes some amusing jabs at our overreliance on technology while making a straightforward statement on women, aging, and outrageous beauty expectations. Shell doesn’t take as many risks as it could by evolving into full-blown, bonkers camp like The Substance, but instead offers a much more reserved, if still over-the-top, final act. The storyline does eventually become somewhat predictable, but the vivacious performances by Hudson and Moss make the journey to the reveal fun. On the outside, Shell is flashy and slick with a dash of dark humor, but it is ultimately not filled with as much nuanced social commentary as The Substance.
In select theaters and on digital October 3rd, 2025.
For more information, head to the official Paramount Pictures Shell webpage.
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews, streaming
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