NAKED
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1994 Scott Renshaw
Starring: David Thewlis, Lesley Sharp, Katlin Cartlidge, Greg Cruttwell, Peter Wight, Claire Skinner. Screenplay/Director: Mike Leigh.
I can thoroughly understand someone either loving or loathing Mike Leigh's NAKED. On the one hand, it is a rather unpleasant visceral experience with troubling images of violence against women; on the other hand, it is unflinching in its acidic humor and features a tour-de-force performance by David Thewlis. Yet for my money, there is another level at which NAKED approaches brilliance. This film is a warning designed for the self rather than for society, a startling examination of one mind's response to dehumanization.
NAKED focuses its attention on Johnny (David Thewlis), an intelligent but extremely bitter drifter from Manchester who takes off for London as the film opens. There he looks up old girlfriend Louise (Lesley Sharp), but first finds her roommate Sophie (Katlin Cartlidge). They get along famously, perhaps a bit too famously as Sophie becomes rather clinging. Johnny spends his days wandering through London, sharing his unique philosophies with characters like Brian (Peter Wight), a mild-mannered night watchman. Meanwhile, Louise and Sophie have a run-in with their sado-masochistic landlord Sebastian Hawkes (Greg Cruttwell), who makes himself a bit too much at home.
With Johnny, Mike Leigh has created a magnificent character who serves as a prophet of the apocalypse, an apocalypse he describes in terms rather different from what one might expect. He is intensely aware that humans, including himself, are becoming something less than human, and his commentary is filled with references to monkeys. As he watches Brian perform his mundane job, Johnny notes that it could be done by a "tall chimp." On another occasion, Louise asks him, "Why are you such a bastard?" "Monkey see, monkey do," is his response. Still later, Johnny asks Sondra (Claire Skinner), Louise and Sophie's high-strung third roommate, about her experiences as a nurse: "Is it true some babies are born with, like, fur all over them?" And on and on, too many instances to mention, all connected to Johnny's larger obsession with evolution. The fact is that in his own unique way, Johnny is a true optimist. When he "preaches" to Brian about the end of humanity as we know it, he is describing an event he looks forward to. We are not the ultimate expression of creation, he realizes; we are far too base. Johnny acknowledges the animal aspect of his nature, but he doesn't revel in it. When he speaks of our new form being like the angels, he is speaking with hope and passion. The title of the film itself becomes an acknowledgement of our status in the universe: when all the frills are stripped away, we're just big monkeys, monkeys who seem to have stopped reaching for more.
All the brilliance in the world in the writing would have counted for little withough a perfect actor for Johnny, and David Thewlis is that actor. His sarcastic, often bilious musings easily could have come off as smug and self-congratulatory, but Thewlis pours a great deal of emotion into his lines. Yes, he believes that he is more aware than those around him, but he derives no pleasure from that knowledge, instead finding only disgust with it. Thewlis is supported by several other fine performances, most notable Claire Skinner's small but memorable role as the frantic Sondra; only Cruttwell rings false with his slimy Sebastian.
NAKED is not without its faults. An encounter between Johnny and a young Scots couple who can't seem to find one another is funny, but doesn't really connect to the rest of the film. The Sebastian character is way too much, too crudely drawn to work as the representation of gilded brutishness he is meant to be. NAKED has a semblance of a narrative through-line, but basically it's a collection of snapshots viewed through Johnny's singular lens, and that collection can appear somewhat unfocused. But from its first jarring frames to its final shot of Johnny limping down a London street, it risks showing us the side of ourselves we don't like to see, and hoping we won't turn away.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 monkeys: 8.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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