“I don’t have a future.”
In the highly entertaining, darkly sardonic film, Naked Johnny (David Thewlis) a belligerent, opinionated drifter rapes a girl, steals a car and leaves Manchester. He arrives in London and visits ex-girlfriend Louise (Lesley Sharp). Louise, who somehow managed to survive several years in a relationship with Johnny, is not exactly happy to see him, and we can understand why. Johnny is obviously bad news. He’s scruffy, unemployed, anti-social and hideously sarcastic. On the plus side, Johnny is extremely intelligent and obviously well educated. The intrepid, unflappable Louise is unmoved by Johnny’s sudden appearance, and this is just as well as Johnny doesn’t spare Louise’s feelings when he openly paws her heavily chemically-dependant roommate, Goth girl Sophie (the late Katrin Cartlidge in a spectacular performance).
The film revolves around the connections Johnny makes with a series of equally lost and lonely souls. As he wanders around London, he penetrates the lives of several strangers–hollow people who are left disturbed when Johnny strips away the illusions of their lives. Life bores Johnny, but he is also attracted by novelty and genuinely curious about the strangers he meets. He very quickly satiates this curiosity, becomes bored again, and moves on to the next subject. Johnny has developed a philosophy of life that includes the idea that humankind is heading into the apocalypse. To Johnny, life is absurd, everything is meaningless, and he asks “what if god put us here for his own entertainment?” Johnny’s perception that life is futile and meaningless is reinforced by the drone-like existence of the people he meets. Johnny’s intelligent, nasty diatribes largely sail over the heads of the dullards he rails at, but his dark wit is quick and sharp enough to demand all of our attention.
While Louise’s roommate, Sophie holds Johnny’s carnal interest briefly, it’s a chance meeting with Brian (Peter Wight), a lonely security guard that remains one of the most intriguing sections of the film. Brian’s meaningless job is to guard an empty building, but he insists that “it’s not a boring job, and I’m not boring either.” Johnny reveals his philosophy of religion and the non-meaning of life to Brian, and Brian, frustrated by Johnny’s nihilistic worldview, reveals his own theories about time. Johnny believes that the end of the world will occur in 1999, has incredible interpretations of several biblical passages, and predicts that humans will soon have barcodes implanted in their hands.
Johnny isn’t a pleasant character. He travels in a bleak intellectual wasteland–a moral wilderness, and in a world devoid of meaning, Johnny is a wandering nihilistic prophet preaching to those lobotomized by the total triviality of their mundane existence. Johnny, however, isn’t the worst character in the film–there’s Sebastian (Greg Cruttwell), an upper class twit with a taste for working girls. He impresses them with his flashy sports car and his credit cards, but then abuses them brutally. No other British director can compete with Mike Leigh when it comes to portraying the British working classes, and in Naked, Leigh is at his best. David Thewlis delivers an incredible performance as Johnny the ultimate anti-hero–part prophet, part product and total reject. Naked isn’t a film for everyone–it’s bleak, dark, and raw, and there are several scenes involving brutal sexuality. I tried to watch this film about a decade ago, and gave up. I’m glad I gave Naked a second look.
