Jeff T
When does this start to get good? I've had about all I can take of this insufferable main character. Is he funny? Clever? Profound? Nope. Annoying as hell? Yup.
Edit: Like a fool I watched to the end, gave it a chance. I want my 2 hours 12 minutes back. This is probably now my least favorite movie. What just happened. Oh: Unrepentent monsters, these two men. Content warning for sexual assaults.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
10/09/23
Full Review
Matthew B
Mike Leigh is renowned for making bitter-sweet movies, but Naked was rare in that it is almost entirely bitter. There is an occasional sweet moment, but they do not end in any salvation for the characters. They are just moments, perhaps misplaced ones.
The tone is set by the movie's protagonist, Johnny Fletcher (David Thewlis). I am tempted to call him the movie's antagonist. He is a man who seems to be in permanent opposition to everything he sees. We certainly cannot call him a hero. He is not the most appealing of men. He looks gaunt and ill. His hair and moustache are untidy. His complexion is pasty. He frequently coughs.
At the start of the film, Johnny is forced to flee Manchester in a stolen car after having violent sex in an alleyway with a married woman – or does he rape her? He wishes to escape being beaten up by her family, so he sets off for London. He will eventually be assaulted (twice) which is a belated comeuppance, I suppose.
Johnny opts to stay with his ex-girlfriend, Louise Clancy (Lesley Sharp). She is living in rented accommodation with two other young women, and has mixed feelings about seeing him. Despite his past involvement with Louise, Johnny has sex with her flatmate, Sophie (Katrin Cartlidge). Sophie is a shopsoiled Goth, easy to seduce, and easy to abuse. Men treat her brutally in the bedroom, but the sex is not truly sado-masochistic. She submits, but she doesn't enjoy it.
Eventually Johnny soon grows weary of Sophie's clingy affection, and he sets out on an Odyssey of London. The echoes with Homer's book are clear (at one point Johnny even picks up a copy of Homer's Iliad). Johnny is on a journey of the city that involves him in a number of adventures, which culminate in him returning to his Penelope.
The overall picture left by Naked is one of hopelessness and despair. This is reflected in the movie's mise-en-scène. Johnny walks along shabby streets covered in rubbish, and passes drab buildings. He stops by stairwells, or rests in doorways. The interiors of houses are usually mundane and cluttered with items. Even the bin in the women's flat is overflowing.
Brian's job is to guard a building that is nothing more than empty space. The man who puts up posters spends half his time putting up advertisements for new events, and the other half pasting Cancelled notices over the older events. Both of their jobs are an exercise in futility.
The characters are metaphorically naked. They have been stripped of a meaningful vocation, of healthy relationships and of any sense of purpose in their lives. They are trapped in a drab post-Thatcherite Britain that has left them behind.
here is no healthy outlet for their emotions, so the men resort to violence. We see no healthy sexual experiences in the film – all the sex contains a level of cruelty that is virtually rape. There are no family units. Redemption is not to be found in love, or in being with another person. Not only do the characters have no roots, they do not even seem to want them.
Mike Leigh is one of Britain's most distinctive directors. He uses a style of his own that makes any of his films instantly recognisable as his. At first glance, Naked may appear as if it has been made up on the spot. There is extensive use of hand-held cameras, and the dialogue sounds as it has been largely improvised.
n fact the process is more complex than this. Leigh allowed the cast to develop the personality and back story of their characters. They were asked to interact with each other and with the outside world whilst still in character. However they were not to discuss their roles informally with one another, but to reveal the nature of their characters while acting. The best dialogue was then distilled into the script. The written script for Naked was only 25 pages long.
This is a risky approach to film-making, as it puts much onus on the actors to convincingly develop their roles, and to create a focused drama together. Occasionally there are weaker links within any Mike Leigh film, or ideas that do not translate well onto screen. Naked is the best example of his work, a movie in which all the elements come together to make a film that is dark and seamy, yet somehow exciting and uplifting.
I wrote a blog expressing a longer appreciation of Naked if you would like to read more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2020/05/07/naked-1993/
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
09/05/23
Full Review
acsdoug D
Can't say I understand all the acclaim for this one. An unlikeable, pretentious a-hole spends a night in London putting down others so he can feel better about himself. That's it.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
07/19/23
Full Review
Peter W
What are the delights of man but his own suffering? What is the pathetic indulgence of the weak but an acknowledgment of one's own superiority? What else is the ecstatic bliss of chaos but the regimented banality of the universe?
Its honesty betrays its themes of indifference, desire, insanity, greed, and apathy, but throughout, inspires you to delve deeper into your own dark soul.
One of the greatest films I've ever seen. Make sure you've properly slicked your soul before entering, or you might not be honest enough to make good.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
05/01/23
Full Review
dave s
Arguably his best film and certainly his most divisive, Mike Leigh's Naked tells the story of Johnny (David Thewlis), an amoral Mancunian drifter who wastes his considerable intellect lecturing to anyone foolish enough to listen to his streetcorner philosophies. It is a dark and grimy film filled with narcissists and nihilists, few of whom have any redeeming characteristics. If you can get past this (as well as the cloying music score early in the film), you'll find a brilliant and insightful script by Leigh as well as one of the greatest performances in recent memory by Thewlis as the raging sociopathic antihero. Not everyone will like Naked's rawness, but everyone will remember it.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
03/30/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Basically a fully grown holden Caufield 2.2. You reach a point and just want the rambling done with
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
10/04/21
Full Review
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