Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot, Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool, Rocketman) is astounding in Israeli film-maker Guy Nattiv’s heartfelt, if slightly flawed new biopic Skin. Based on Bill Brummel’s acclaimed 2011 documentary Erasing Hate, the film follows the life of former Neo-Nazi and skinhead Bryon Widner as he attempts to leave the white supremacist organisation he grew up in.

When we first meet him in 2005, Widner (Bell) is a seemingly unrepentant violent thug and a racist known to the authorities. Tattooed with swastikas and “white power” symbols from head-to-toe, Bryan cuts a chilling figure as he is seen clashing with anti-fascist demonstrators alongside other members of a group headed by white supremacist leader Fred ‘Hammer’ Krager (a brilliant Bill Camp), and his wife Shareen (Vera Farmiga).

Bryan’s life starts to unravel when a he and his “brothers” gang-up on black teenager at a rally in Columbus, Ohio, leaving him fighting for his life. Growing disenchanted with Fred and Shareen’s poisonous ideology, Bryan finds salvation when he meets and falls for single mother of three Julie (an impressive Danielle Macdonald). Hoping to put the past behind him, Bryan must find common ground with black political activist Daryle Lamont Jenkins (Mike Colter) who vows to help him start a new life in exchange for information on his former boss.

With shades of American History X, Tony Kaye’s seminal 1998 film on a similar subject, Skin does a great job in advancing the discourse around the recent rise of the far-right beyond the newspaper headlines. Director Guy Nattiv presents a complex and beautifully nuanced story, whilst being careful not to get bogged down with the usual tropes and clichés attached to these kinds of narratives.

Often intercut with sequences of Bryan undergoing painful procedures to remove racist tattoos from his face and body, a narrative device which doesn’t seem to add anything of value to the story itself, Skin is nonetheless able to tell a deeply personal and honest account of the triumph of good over evil.

Jamie Bell, who recently impressed as Bernie Taupin in Dexter Fletcher’s Elton John biopic Rocketman, goes above and beyond of what is expected of him by undergoing a challenging physical transformation, to give one of his best and most visceral performances yet.

While Skin is, more often than not, let down by its inability to stick to the same dramatic tone throughout, the film does do a great job in conveying what can be achieved when barriers of hate are broken down.