Elizabeth Banks kills it in “Skincare”, a sleek and savvy crime thriller and black comedy hybrid from director Austin Peters. Banks (who also serves as a producer) is the film’s centerpiece and she gets some juicy material to work with from the screenwriting trio of Peters, Sam Freilich, and Deering Regan. The tonal gymnastics aren’t always seamless, but Peters manages with enough verve to make those things easy to look past.

Framed as as fictional story inspired by true events, “Skincare” is loosely based on celebrity facialist Dawn DaLuise. In 2014 DaLuise was wrongly arrested and charged with ordering a hit on competitor Gabriel Suarez who she (also wrongly) believed was behind a plot to sabotage her business. Unable to afford the $1 million bail, DaLuise was forced to spend ten months in jail while awaiting trial. When her trial finally began, she was acquitted in under one hour.

“Skincare” borrows a lot from the true account while adding its own incisive spin. Set in 2013, Banks plays Hope Goldman, a celebrity aesthetician and the owner and namesake of a Hollywood skincare studio. Hope is in full promotional mode as she’s only days away from launching her own line of skincare products. But underneath the glamorous facade, a cash-strapped Hope struggles to maintain her high-end salon while dodging her landlord Jeff (John Billingsley) and his attempts to collect past-due rent.

Things take a more dire turn after an up-and-coming facialist named Angel (Luis Gerardo Méndez) opens a boutique across the plaza. It doesn’t take long for Angel to become the talk of Tinseltown and soon Hope starts losing high-profile clients to her new rival. She even loses her guest spot on a popular daytime television talk show hosted by a schmoozing and appropriately slimy Nathan Fillion.

But what really turns Hope’s world upside down is when her email is hacked and a humiliating fake message is sent out to all of her clients. Shortly after, vulgar and aggressively explicit posts start popping up online in her name. The harassment turns even more menacing after she discovers her tires slashed. Hope immediately suspects Angel, but without any evidence the police won’t act. In the meantime she steadily hemorrhages customers while Angel’s business booms.

Hope has a chance encounter with a peppy Hollywood newbie named Jordan (Lewis Pullman). He’s a self-proclaimed life coach and wellness guru who agrees to help her counteract the intensifying attacks and rebuild her image. But things only get worse from there as Hope’s obsession with success is only rivaled by her fixation on Angel. It spins the knotty yet comical yarn into a pulpy cautionary tale about the lengths people will go to get what they want and how an out-of-control desire for notoriety can have damaging consequences.

As the story unwinds Peters shrewdly immerses us in the upscale Hollywood milieu while also dipping our toes in the city’s seedier side. A variety of supporting characters fill it all out with the best being an underused Michaela Jaé Rodriguez as Hope’s assistant and head of PR. But the movie works thanks to a committed and perfectly tuned Elizabeth Banks whose textured performance is the glue that holds it all together.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS