MIKE LEIGH'S MASTERPEICE: NAKED
Johnny (David Thewlis) doesn't enter a room; he infects it. He is a man who is permanently displaced, unhinged from whatever framework once held him together. The film starts on a vulgar note that sets the tone for the rest of the odyssey.
In a dark alley of Manchester, we witness the tail end of a sexual assault, after which the aggressor—Johnny—is seen fleeing the scene of the crime and stealing a car.
Johnny arrives at his ex-girlfriend Louise’s doorstep in Dalston.
He mocks her relentlessly for a postcard she sent him, as well as her unyielding hospitality, where it's obvious, she still holds some deeper attachment to this lost soul.
It's clear that Johnny is unwell. It could be said he is quick to betray, but that would be a falsehood; he has no loyalty to anything but his own dreary self-perseverance and "urges."
While Johnny may be despicable—a monster of sorts—he's an intellectual powerhouse. His deep comprehension of literature and theology, hints at a life that was once more entitled than it has now become.
This hint is the bitterness in his musings, his massive accumulation of knowledge, so thoroughly ignored by a blind society.
The dialogue is so sharp in this film; every line seems to have two or three meanings. Every interaction, however minor, seems encapsulated in a deeper, condensed "core" that Johnny is so hopelessly drilling towards.
Sophie: "You look like shit."
Johnny: (looking around the apartment) "I'm just trying to blend in with the surroundings."
In the restless urban surroundings, he sees the world as living in a "waking dream," their goals and dreams a mockery to the ambition of cosmic understanding.
All this darkness and bleakness wouldn't have much purpose without some beacon of goodness for contrast, and that's where Louise's flatmate Sophie (Lesley Sharp) comes in.
Sophie is the utter antithesis to the Johnnys of the world. Stoic in her own way, yet profoundly vulnerable, she offsets Johnny's delirious demands for the world to format around him.
It’s worth noting that the chemistry in these scenes is anchored by Katrin Cartlidge, who played Louise with such a grounded, weary soul.
Her passing in 2002 at the age of 41 left a massive void in British cinema; she was a performer who could inhabit the "grey" of life better than almost anyone, and will be missed.
After Jonny "comes home," to Manchester, he begins a new depraved odyssey, back into the streets where he does his preaching and swearing and smoking.
On this journey, we are introduced to a variety of "voices" of the people, for which Johnny antagonizes verbally: a late-night worker, locked in the minutia of his monotonous routines, a security guard, who is guarding "space," to which Johnny quips "how would you know if it was stolen?"
This continues as Johnny bounces from one conflict to the next, culminating into symphonic despair when all the walls come crashing in.
I consider Thewlis's performance in this film to be up there with Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood. It's near perfection. The humor is constant (although dark) and the cinematography takes you on a journey that makes you feel like you are caged into this world with these shady characters.
While Thewlis has gone on to absolutely crush his role in Season 3 of the Fargo series as the repulsive V.M. Varga, his performance as the insidious Johnny will always, at least to me, be his defining role.
