David O'ConnellNaked
November 27th 2008 00:05
Mike Leigh’s 1992 film is one of the most raw and searing portraits of mankind ever committed to film.
David Thewlis, in the role that has most defined his career, is Johnny, a cynical, amoral man who abandons Manchester after raping a young woman in a back alley in the film’s confronting opening scene. He steals a car and flees to London where he turns up on the doorstep of an ex-girlfriend, Louise (Lesley Sharp).
One of her flat-mates is at home, a disturbed drug addict, Sophie (Katrin Cartlidge) who he’s soon charming with his laconic wit and dire cynicism; despite his disheveled appearance he’s clearly a well-read, intelligent person, but with a twisted worldview not exactly aligned with populist thought.
Within a day or two - and a few rounds of rough sex - Sophie becomes disturbingly attentive to his needs but Johnny is going stir-crazy in the drab flat with conversation at a standstill with the two frustrated women. He eventually bails out, headed for the mean streets of the city where he has various encounters with the seedier elements spotted around the metropolis and its colourful night-life.
One of the film’s best sequences involves Johnny and a bored security guard, Brian (Peter Wight), outside whose door he camps one night. The guard lets him in for the sake of human interaction, giving him a tour of his building whilst Johnny rants in his uniquely elliptical, rambling manner. He may be a purveyor of the bleakest philosophical wares, but he’s genuinely hilarious at times which naturally draws the empathy of strangers.
Naked is essentially about one man’s plight into the bowels of a profound, disturbing disillusionment with existence and the state of the human race; it’s full of Johnny’s scathing sarcasm and literate wit - often intertwined and the same – but he seems unable to grasp any sense of life’s day to day meaning in the drudgery of his poverty and debased, hollow sexual encounters.
Sex seems to be a battle between physical forces, for Johnny, in which he must immediately gain the upper hand by abusing the female; clearly, amongst other things, he's also a despicable misogynist who has a hard time relating to women in more than one fundamental way, and resents them for it in the same stroke.
The cast is uniformly exceptional, especially Thewlis and Sharp as the transplanted duo from Manchester, and Leigh's usual modus operandi - allowing for improvisation in his exhaustive rehearsals - supplies the end product with a grim conviction.
Whenever a glimmer of light, a tiny moment of tenderness is revealed - mostly through the eyes of the women, but even occasionally flickering in Johnny’s eyes - it’s destroyed just as simply in the next scene as Leigh reasserts his graveyard view of human nature.
Even the final scene usurps the hopefulness of the previous sequence which seems to offer the faint stirrings of a possible redemption for Johnny’s blackened soul.
Has he finally seen the light? Can he finally acknowledge the goodness tearing up inside of Louise?
The last lingering image belies it all, shattering the possibilities into irretrievable shards as Johnny walks away, without a belonging or emotional connection to the world and its inhabitants, only the perpetration of another act borne of moral bankruptcy, another sinful notch in his belt.
David Thewlis, in the role that has most defined his career, is Johnny, a cynical, amoral man who abandons Manchester after raping a young woman in a back alley in the film’s confronting opening scene. He steals a car and flees to London where he turns up on the doorstep of an ex-girlfriend, Louise (Lesley Sharp).
One of her flat-mates is at home, a disturbed drug addict, Sophie (Katrin Cartlidge) who he’s soon charming with his laconic wit and dire cynicism; despite his disheveled appearance he’s clearly a well-read, intelligent person, but with a twisted worldview not exactly aligned with populist thought.
Within a day or two - and a few rounds of rough sex - Sophie becomes disturbingly attentive to his needs but Johnny is going stir-crazy in the drab flat with conversation at a standstill with the two frustrated women. He eventually bails out, headed for the mean streets of the city where he has various encounters with the seedier elements spotted around the metropolis and its colourful night-life.
One of the film’s best sequences involves Johnny and a bored security guard, Brian (Peter Wight), outside whose door he camps one night. The guard lets him in for the sake of human interaction, giving him a tour of his building whilst Johnny rants in his uniquely elliptical, rambling manner. He may be a purveyor of the bleakest philosophical wares, but he’s genuinely hilarious at times which naturally draws the empathy of strangers.
Housemates Louise (Lesley Sharp) and Sophie (Katrin Cartlidge).
Naked is essentially about one man’s plight into the bowels of a profound, disturbing disillusionment with existence and the state of the human race; it’s full of Johnny’s scathing sarcasm and literate wit - often intertwined and the same – but he seems unable to grasp any sense of life’s day to day meaning in the drudgery of his poverty and debased, hollow sexual encounters.
Sex seems to be a battle between physical forces, for Johnny, in which he must immediately gain the upper hand by abusing the female; clearly, amongst other things, he's also a despicable misogynist who has a hard time relating to women in more than one fundamental way, and resents them for it in the same stroke.
David Thewlis gives an extraordinary performance as Johnny.
The cast is uniformly exceptional, especially Thewlis and Sharp as the transplanted duo from Manchester, and Leigh's usual modus operandi - allowing for improvisation in his exhaustive rehearsals - supplies the end product with a grim conviction.
Whenever a glimmer of light, a tiny moment of tenderness is revealed - mostly through the eyes of the women, but even occasionally flickering in Johnny’s eyes - it’s destroyed just as simply in the next scene as Leigh reasserts his graveyard view of human nature.
Even the final scene usurps the hopefulness of the previous sequence which seems to offer the faint stirrings of a possible redemption for Johnny’s blackened soul.
Has he finally seen the light? Can he finally acknowledge the goodness tearing up inside of Louise?
The last lingering image belies it all, shattering the possibilities into irretrievable shards as Johnny walks away, without a belonging or emotional connection to the world and its inhabitants, only the perpetration of another act borne of moral bankruptcy, another sinful notch in his belt.
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Comment by Jason King
Sydney Table
Salty Popcorn
Total Randomness
Cool post!
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
A triumph of writing, directing and acting.
As you said, a searing portrayal.
You want to see acting? You watch this movie.
RIP Katrin.
The actor who plays that nasty son-of-a-bitch suit. Brilliant. But then, they're all brilliant. Every character, every actor.
And yeah, that extended scene between Johnny and the nightwatchman ... wow. That's some fucked up intellectual shit.
Great review as usual David. You know how to pick 'em.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Thankyou Bryn! It's my favourite Leigh film too, a real masterclass in acting - they're all quite extraordinary, no doubt about it.
A real tragedy Katrin Cartlidge was lost to film so young. Apparently there's a Criterion version of this with a commentary from 94 with her, Thewlis and Leigh, recorded not long before she died which might be a fascinating listen. She was real flesh and bone that woman, a great actress.
I loved Lesley Sharp in this too, as an outsider in London, slogging away at a menial job, with such dignity in her suffering, and then Johnny bringing his intoxicating form of poison back into her life. Your heart can't help breaking for her.