Review XCIII - Naked

Review XCIII
Naked (1993)

Hey everyone! It's been a while, hasn't it? I can't say I've been that busy, but I haven't had time to sit down and watch films in a while. Plus a bunch of personal issues rose while doing examinations, so everything went crazy. Now it's almost Christmas and I haven't watched a single Christmas film! It's okay - instead I offer you a film that, well, is nothing like Christmas. Ladies and gentlemen, here's my review of Mike Leigh's Naked starring David Thewlis, Lesley Sharp, Katrin Cartlidge, and Greg Cruttwell.

Johnny (Thewlis) is a cynical (and probably depressed) Mancunian man who is on the run after raping a woman. He heads to his ex-girlfriend's house, Louise (Sharp), where she rooms with Sophie (Cartlidge), a lonely woman, and Sandra (Claire Skinner), a nurse who is overseas with her boyfriend. However, his mannerisms and thoughts do not get him a particularly warm welcome, except from Sophie, and he finds himself exploring a degraded city and meeting its degenerates, at least according to him. All the while the tenants' landlord, Sebastian Hawks (Cruttwell), is coming to visit.

I watched this film in three parts with quite a distance between each viewing, so my review will be lacking a bit given that I had a bit of difficulty in trying to catch everything when I had forgotten some parts at the beginning. Nonetheless, I will try for you guys. I can tell you that, overall, this film is one depressing piece. I'm not really sure I get the "black comedy" Wikipedia is selling it as since I didn't find it particularly funny. In fact, there was no part in the film that made me laugh out loud - and I can have a pretty morbid sense of humour at times. But anyway, back to the film. I'm not from England and I've never even been to England, so I think part of the film's meaning is lost on me. Apparently Mike Leigh (the director) was aiming for a realistic piece of cinema, depicting the decaying culture and people of England that emerged following the sixties and what it was in the nineties. Again, I can't really comment since I was not present in this time.

David Thewlis' character is a ruthless protagonist, a drifter who wants human connection, but rejects it the moment he gets it. He rants to Lesley Sharp's character, Louise, about how happy she must be having left Manchester in order to work some trivial job. Did she abandon Johnny by leaving Manchester? Did she try to leave her past behind? Is she simply following the norm of pursuing something bigger and better by moving to the capital? I don't know much about the history of England and I'm feeling too lazy to look into it, but it would make sense to me that these questions are all part of the film's plot. Johnny, on the other hand, is a drifter - he has never settled. Could it be that he can't find a home anymore, or that he never had one? Has Manchester, London, and all of England simply become a wasteland? It would fit into his apocalypse theory. The world will continue, but humans cannot. We have reached the point where our culture has faltered and is abasing fast. Nonetheless, Johnny tries to find some sort of companionship along the road - settling on a man who is looking for some girl named Maggie, only for the two to meet and fight (romance is dead? Relationships are down the drain?). He also meets a security guard who is convinced he will be reincarnated in the future. This guy... Hmm... Could it represent the ignorant people who accept their situation and believe that a higher power is looking out for them? That the future is certain and they have time to fix up their problems? I'm not too sure. Then Johnny meets a girl who works at a diner. After asking if he can stay the night, tears stream down her face, and asks if Johnny ever had a dog. The conversation continues with the woman asking Johnny questions, until he asks her what is the matter. She storms out of the room and proceeds to tell him to get out. Perhaps Johnny hit too close to home with her, tried to get to know her too well. Again, the death of relationships and getting to know people. I mean, it certainly is a central theme in the film. Any type of relationship displayed on screen is perverse. Greg Cruttwell's character is... wow. That man is wicked (and not in a good way). Sophie falls in love with Johnny, but he tells her to get lost. Louise and Sophie end up comforting each other when Sebastian takes control of the house, but prior to that, Louise can only bad mouth Sophie. And, in the end, Sophie runs off when Louise and Johnny share an intimate moment on the floor of their bathroom (oh god, no! Not in the way you're thinking! Johnny was just throwing up! ... Please, get away emetophilics.). Relationships in this film just do not exist on a normal, healthy level. And this could be a criticism of today's mentality about relationships - I'm not one hundred percent sure. All I can say is, with Johnny's last encounter with a man who puts up posters, we get a huge poster advertising Megadeth's latest album at the time, Countdown to Extinction (headlining with Pantera!). Again, this idea of extinction, human beings dying. It probably isn't real extinction, but the extinction of a culture, of a people that had a meaning.

I could go on, but seriously, this film is just one depressing scene after another. People wear black and white, navy blue and grey. London itself is a grey place to be. It's not a happy film, showing how everything has gone down the drain. I didn't think the film was bad, but it wasn't all that spectacular. I thought Sebastian's character was a bit... random. I mean, I liked that scene where Louise comes in and he appears, but you only get a shot of his penis (in his underwear) right at her face. That's creativity right there. And the nurse character, Sandra? She also seemed a bit randomly placed. This film is interesting it what it tries to get across, but I wouldn't highly recommend it. It's an interesting psychological piece, but let's all watch something a little less grey for Christmas, okay? Maybe some Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 5: The Toy Maker! Am I right? ... Okay, I'll be quiet now.

R.I.P. Piratebay.