Scratch the Surface (1997)

Tara Fitzpatrick's Scratch the Surface captures a few insights into the world of teen modeling, but as its title suggests, it never delves deeply enough into its subject. Because Fitzpatrick, a former teen model, focuses on the experiences of her friends and family, and doesn't include a perspective from anyone outside the business, the film doesn't work as an exposé or as a thoughtful critique of the fashion industry. But Scratch the Surface doesn't really work as personal filmmaking either. Though she claims that the former models interviewed (including Whitney Houston, Brooke Shields, and Phoebe Cates) are her "friends," there's never any real sense of camaraderie among them. They never seem to be any more than former co-workers in a business that set them in competition against each other. The most insightful of the models interviewed is Valerie Cates, who didn't start modeling until she was inspired by her younger sister, Phoebe. Having started her career at a later age, she also comes closest to having an outsider's perspective. This suggests that a broader view of the subject would have been more informative. The film is haphazardly edited. Every time a subject begins to tell an amusing or interesting story, the filmmaker cuts to a snippet of another interview before returning to the anecdote, which lessens its impact. It's also not clear why Fitzpatrick chose to make her film in black-and-white, but one suspects that it was to impart her film with an unearned seriousness. Scratch the Surface is a sporadically enjoyable, but sloppily made documentary that relies too heavily on its audience's fascination with the very superficiality it means to critique. Youth and beauty are indeed overvalued in American culture, and Scratch the Surface is more another symptom than it is a meaningful analysis of the phenomenon. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide