A rare example of Dutch and American filmmakers working together, 2004's 'Mysterious Skin' is a straight-up drama that comes from a book, also called 'Mysterious Skin' and published in 1996. Gregg Araki loved the novel, wrote the screenplay and went on to direct the film. It took a while for distributors to pick it up; although it earned strong reviews at the Venice International Film Festival, it didn't actually receive full distribution to cinemas until the following year.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt's acting qualities were on full display in this film, telling the miserable tale of two young teenage boys who are abused by a baseball coach. Each of them responds to the abuse in a different way; one of them convinces himself he's both gay and worthless and becomes a hustler, and the other psychologically detaches from reality, becoming a paranoid conspiracy theorist.