by John P. Meyer

Sandra's parents are white, and she is black. It's apartheid-era South Africa. (Uh oh.)

Skin was yet another of the films I missed in the course of film festival coverage (it played during AFI Dallas earlier this year), though I did get to photograph actress Alice Krige and director/co-writer Anthony Fabian on the red carpet. Fabian's movie opens today (Friday) at the Landmark Magnolia.

Most of us whose heads are held above sand-level are familiar with apartheid as practiced in the Republic of South Africa until 1994. One of the foundations of apartheid was the Population Registration Act of 1950, which made it mandatory for all citizens of South Africa to be registered and classified in accordance with their racial characteristics.

A young girl named Sandra (played as a child by Ella Ramangwane) finds herself cornered between two worlds when her parents -- Sannie and Abraham Laing (Alice Krige and Sam Neill) -- enroll her in boarding school. Sandra's parents are white Afrikaners, but Sandra's skin color is closer to milk chocolate -- she is plainly "colored," to use the terminology employed in the film.

Sandra's presence causes an immediate head-turning, jaw-dropping reaction from the other kids at school, as well as the parents who are there to enroll them and the teachers attempting to conduct class in spite of this unwanted distraction.

In retrospect, the naiveté of Sannie and Abraham is rather astounding: Though they have a document certifying Sandra as white, their expectation that she will be welcomed with open arms into this hotbed of racial elitism can be seen as blatantly ludicrous. Perhaps it's the fact that they've been living in relative isolation in a rural postal station outpost since Sandra was born; perhaps they'd become blind to the fact that their bright young daughter was in any way different than other kids. They loved and accepted her -- surely everyone else would do the same.

No way. Regardless of her paper classification, the school's headmaster undertakes a crash initiative to have Sandra ejected. He first resorts to having her examined by a government doctor to determine racial characteristics; when this proves too time consuming, he falls back on switch-stick discipline, humiliating the young girl in front of the class to assuage his own sense of outrage.

Sandra's father then goes into "never give up" mode (his mantra), taking the case of his daughter's race to the judicial level; an expert testifies that a large percentage of Afrikaners have recessive black genes, and thus it's entirely possible for two white parents to produce a black child. The government officially changes its stance on racial determination from one based upon appearance to one based on parentage. But what appears to be a victory for Sandra soon becomes a source of enormous disappointment and life-long emotional trauma.

Years later, Sandra returns home from school. She has blossomed into attractive young adulthood (now portrayed by the talented, expressive Sophie Okonedo), and the young men are beginning to take notice. Here lies the problem.

Being officially white, Sandra begins dating white boys. Two issues emerge: 1) the chaps who show up to date her range from a simpleton who reveals himself as a poultry nerd ("Did you know you can hypnotize chickens?"), to a would-be rapist with a hair fetish; and 2) although by law she can only date white boys, as a result of her appearance she is not accepted into the sorts of establishments so important to the dating process (e.g., restaurants).

When a young black man named Petrus (Tony Kgoroge) takes a shine to the lovely Sandra, she is initially resistant. Her upbringing has been the same as any other white Afrikaner, whose strictures against interracial fraternization are draconian. But Petrus is actually kind to her, and in his company she finds herself accepted in social situations -- until her parents discover the blooming relationship.

And this is where the film story takes on a level of complexity that raises it above standard genre fare. What initially turns into a Romeo and Juliet tale of forbidden (and ultimately doomed) romance, expands thematically into an exploration of the limits of love when confronted by institutionalized prejudice. There can be no doubt that Sandra's parents love her. They have devoted their lives to making hers better. But there are boundaries which even their love cannot cross, and Sandra is about to venture beyond them.

Both Krige and Neill are fabulous in their portrayals, but it's Okonedo who shines brightest here. Her Sandra displays both the strength and resiliency of her father and the nurturing acceptance of her mother; she must draw upon both to survive.

Skin -- based upon the true story of Sandra Laing -- ends up being a tale of triumph, but the reverberations of its tragedy linger longest.

What do you think?