At first sight, Skincare is a mildly competent thriller, a yarn properly spun despite the obvious mid-tier fodder aesthetic. The acting is competent but ordinary, the dialogue is functional if unremarkable, and you’re not worse for wear after 96 minutes of recriminations.

Then you realize Skincare is like a bad facial: inconsequential in the beginning but irritates your skin shortly after. The film’s raison d’être seems to be punishing a woman whose ‘flaw’ is to be driven. The plot sounds like it was written by Andrew Tate – on the verge of hitting the big time, an esthetician ironically named Hope (Elizabeth Banks) witnesses her dreams of becoming a skincare mogul vanish in real time; a direct competitor moves across from her and starts poaching her clientele, a make-it-or-break-it interview doesn’t air, and someone is wreaking havoc online by pretending to be her.

There’s no shortage of suspects as the beauty specialist attracts some seriously toxic characters, from a life coach (Lewis Pullman) just freed from jail to a morning show anchor (Nathan Fillion) who assumes women should surrender to him on account of being on TV. Much to Hope’s chagrin, they all have something that she wants, and they’re only interested in transactional deals, wink wink, nudge nudge.

Skincare works best when depicting the chain of events that send Hope over the edge. As portrayed by Banks, the protagonist isn’t warm or cuddly and makes increasingly poor decisions out of desperation, but the punishment she receives is disproportional to her actions. It’s a curious decision that has more to do with bad scriptwriting than the “life isn’t fair” school of thought.

SKINCARE is out now in the US, and coming soon to the UK.