Mike Leigh's Talent Is Still Evident, Despite The Tawdriness Of This Film!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                       I saw two of Leigh's later films, "Secrets and Lies," (1996) and "Vera Drake,"(2004) watching them with great admiration.  "Naked" is an earlier film from 1993, and while I admired it filmically, I found the subject and characters distasteful.

                                        "Naked" struck me as a British version of Martin Scoresese's 1985 film, "After Hours," with Griffin Dunne.  Both are about young men wandering the night lives of respected cities, London and New York.    But the earlier film was never as tawdry as this.  Perhaps Leigh in his own way was trying to replicate or present his own version of the Nighttown sequence in Joyce's "Ulysses."

                                           David Thewlis, in an excellent performance, plays Johnny, a drifter from Manchester (at least that is what we're told, because the script is not big on information) who has come to London for who knows what?  The opening shows him shagging a woman, then stealing her car.  He then goes on to have sex with just about every woman he encounters, including an old flame of his from back home, Louise, played by Lesley Sharp.  She seems to be the most stable character in the film--certainly her roommate Sophie (Kaitlin Cartlidge) is not--but why would Louise take up with this loser, not to mention a sadist who calls himself Sebastian, but is really Jeremy?  Does anyone care about these characters?  I certainly did not!   And are any of them some kind of catch?  No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                            Whether this is Leigh's central point, a cautionary tale for single women, a depiction of the sordidness of lower life in London--and John Osborne did that better--or all of the above is anyone's guess. Mine would be the last.

                                               But there is no doubt Leigh catches the eerie nighttime beauty of lower-class London, the quiet, the desperate characters, the kind unseen during the day.  Vampires, maybe? Well, of a kind.

                                               Legh's mastery of his actors is impeccable.  His script could have used some trimming.  The point of "Naked" is made, long before its ending.

                                                 Now, go put on some clothes, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!