Skin (2009)

In a true story set in apartheid-era South Africa, Sophie Okonedo plays a black woman born to white parents (the result of racial mixing generations earlier). The actress brilliantly evokes her shy character and gets excellent support from Alice Krige and Sam Neill as her mother and loving but bigoted father. Skin is a tragic, enraging, and uplifting tale. The most feel-good aspect may be director Anthony Fabian's decision to begin his film with a written definition of apartheid: It's encouraging to think that so much time has passed, younger viewers might not actually know what it was. B+

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