Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

classicsoncall Movies like this don't appeal to me on the surface level. Principal characters with a negative attitude and quarrelsome disposition are an immediate turn-off. But Johnny (David Thewlis) is a train wreck in motion and it's hard to avert one's attention from his intelligent dialog, difficult to separate from the idea that he's a social misfit of the first order. Director Mike Leigh makes this film a statement about homelessness, urban alienation, sexual violence and drug abuse, and does so in a masterful way as Johnny makes his way amid a London underbelly on the verge of disintegration. The picture offers any number of derelict characters, and the one that transfixed me the most was that whiplash-head guy who looked like he might have just stepped off a Saturday Night Live set. He would have been right at home with someone like Massive Head Wound Harry. For all his dysfunctional behavior, it was the paper hanger guy who eventually got around to doing what I would have liked to do to Johnny myself, and for a film and an actor to elicit that kind of reaction, it has to be firing on all cylinders. Not for the faint hearted, but if you're having a bad day, this is the kind of picture that might actually lift your spirits.

Lee Eisenberg Mike Leigh has spent his career focusing a lot on the United Kingdom's underclass. Another characteristic of his works is the slow pace, so as to help acquaint the audience with the characters. Both of these are apparent in 1993's "Naked". The movie shows a stark contrast between the working class and ruling class, as evidenced by David Thewlis's and Greg Cruttwell's characters. But this isn't simply a story of who's good and who's bad. These are multidimensional characters. Basically, it's a look at the bare reality of life for large numbers of British citizens, while also touching on issues like alienation and misogyny. Thatcherism had eviscerated the ideals of the '60s, leaving people hopeless (and we can see many of the characters living in cramped spaces).I don't know if I would call it Leigh's best movie - he's made a number of good ones - but it offers a good look at the desperation felt by large numbers of the UK's citizens in the wake of Thatcherism. The protagonist's conspiracy theories sound like something that Charles Manson would dream up.Anyway, good movie. Also starring Lesley Sharp and Katrin Cartlidge (who later starred in the Oscar-winning "No Man's Land" but died of blood poisoning shortly thereafter).

Christopher Culver Mike Leigh's 1993 film NAKED is a drama on sexual relations -- how men hurt women, how some women accept that hurt out of low self-esteem and a desire to be wanted or supported. It is distinguished by its remarkably lifelike characters. Most of the film was worked out in improvisations for several months before shooting began. Leigh wanted his actors to create elaborate back stories for their characters, fully living inside of them so that when the cameras started rolling they would be completely convincing.As the film opens, Johnny (David Thewlis) has to flee Manchester after a sexual encounter with a married woman turns into rape and she threatens to set her husband after him. Stealing a car, he heads to London to crash at his ex-girlfriend Louise (Lesley Sharp), gets involved with her flatmate Sophie (Katrin Cartlidge), and spends a couple of nights homeless in London. Interspliced with this are scenes of Jeremy, a rich real estate broker whose sexual conquests serve as an upper-class counterpart to Johnny's own. Naturally the viewer is led to wonder what will happen when these two men meet.Something is wrong with Johnny, he answers anything said to him with a rambling torrent of words, a logorrhea that is a form of intellectual bullying; this deeply wounded man seems to feel the best defense against the cruelties of the world is a good offense. Only 27, Johnny is so wasted that he is taken for much older. In this, Thewlis's performance is one of the masterful screen portrayals of an eccentric or mentally ill person, like Dustin Hoffmann in RAIN MAN or Peter Sellers in BEING THERE.But all of the characters here are memorable, and my thoughts have often gone back to them in the time since I saw this film. I do have reservations about the plot, inasmuch as the last scenes of the film (which were decided only late in the filmmaking process) too suddenly change the tone and may seem anticlimactic. Nonetheless, I would recommend this film and believe it a great one in spite of its undeniable flaws.

reachtitan Finally watched it. Mike Leigh's "Naked" is one of the most thematically disturbing and haunting movies you will ever come across. It tells the story of Johnny(Thewlis), a philosophical,world-weary drifter who is always on the run from the law.After committing a rape in Manchester, he lams to London to live at his former girlfriend's residence. Thereon, he again embarks on a surreal odyssey on the London streets meeting people as queer as himself. From answering questions as deeply rooted in theology and metaphysics;spitting out doomsday prophecies as some boardroom lecture to satisfying needs as banal as a hot-water bath and some sex, Johnny does it all here, on this trip.Director Leigh extracts performances verging on the edge of perfection from the entire cast and does so with superb improvisation which is quite evident,especially, in scenes that feature Johnny. Everyone is a knockout in the acting department, but,hey;then there is David Thewlis as Johnny.He delivers a portrayal that has shades of Hamlet,Jimmy Porter,even Jesus(a very sado-masochistic and cruel one at that). I say Jesus paradoxically because in a way Johnny wants to save mankind from the ignorance of believing we are not doomed and affirming that God has manipulated us(mankind) for the sake of some cosmic warfare. It is indeed a cynical and paradoxical second coming of Christ. Thewlis gave his 'naked' body and soul to this film by devouring almost every book about religion and eschatology as a part of role-preparation. he evokes time to time disgust,pity.hatred and wonder in his hauntingly mesmerizing performance.If you are looking for plot, there isn't any. Most of the film revolves around Johnny and his adventures. Fraught with existential overtones,it is a thunderous take by Leigh on the Thatcherite England which almost convinces viewers that it is a dystopian world we are living in; that apocalypse isn't far and we need something or somebody to awaken us from this nightmare.