The idea for the critically acclaimed 1993 film naked then came director Mike Leigh was still young and was in primary school. Leigh tells the guard that he began to contemplate the end of the world and the millennium because of a “very enlightened teacher who constantly reminded [him] that the next total solar eclipse would be in August 1999.” You may be wondering what the apocalypse has to do with the themes of naked, but it turns out that many of Leigh’s projects start this way. Leigh prefers to develop loose concepts and let the stories and characters grow naturally. According to The Guardian, the initial ideas for Mike Leigh’s films “have only a small connection to the final film, which is always a character-driven drama.”
The development of the film, like most of Leigh’s original concepts, was very unconventional. Leigh met actor David Thewlis (the sandman, Harry Potter) before he knew what naked would look like. They narrowed down the character of Thewlis by researching men they knew in real life and worked their way up to the fictional Johnny Fletcher through months of improvisation. As The Guardian reports, the improvisation between actors David Thewlis and Ewan Bremner sometimes got so out of hand that the police sometimes intervened; Thewlis says he “came dangerously close to the character.”
However, these tactics paid off and resulted in critical acclaim. Roger Ebert rated the film four out of four stars, saying Mike Leigh goes beyond conventional modern film and presents a stunning slice of cinema with “no plot, no characters to identify with and no hope. But there is concern.” Here’s why the 1993 movie: naked is arguably the best film ever made about self-destruction.
Johnny Fletcher, the problematic antihero
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The most obvious view of self-destruct in naked is Johnny Fletcher himself. The film follows Johnny after he rapes a woman in a Manchester alley and is chased away by her family. Looking for shelter and protection, Johnny arrives at his ex-girlfriend Louise’s apartment and tries to seduce her roommate. Shortly after, Johnny gets bored and wanders back onto the street where he follows another woman home and is again chased and thrown back onto the street. He tries to chase another woman into a bar, but is put off by her tattoo.
He meets Archie, a man with Tourette syndrome who is looking for his girlfriend, and Brian, a guard of an empty building, but quickly returns to his bum. Finally, after Johnny is beaten up by a street gang, Johnny returns to his ex-girlfriend to find the landlord, an unstable rapist, who raped Louise’s roommate, Sophie. After Louise persuades the psychotic landlord to leave, she and Johnny reconcile, yet he returns to roaming the streets.
Despite Johnny’s venomous attitude towards women and his tendency to poke the bear over and over, the man is interestingly complex and very charming at times. Johnny has fleeting episodes of poetic perspective and cynical humor, and is aware of his destructive behavior. Though he leaves violence and abuse behind, he offers insights into the end of the world and life itself. According to Taste of Cinema, there is a theory that Johnny could be a “modern messiah” and a “flawed but forgiving Jesus trying to change the lives of those in his sphere.” However, it is more likely that this violent character represents a darker and unbalanced version of our own reality. Johnny portrays a cyclical addiction to pain and violence, although he does get some ways out.
The self-destruct was really made by the cast
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when watching nakedThere’s something shockingly real about the reactions and behavior of the characters in the film. This is probably due to Mike Leigh’s small 25-page script and the use of improv before the project was actually shot. As we mentioned earlier, The Guardian narrates an episode of this improv where things got out of hand. David Thewlis, who plays Johnny, was told by Leigh to wait on church steps for another actor, Ewan Bremner, and respond to Bremner as Johnny. Thewlis recalls that it was hard to get out of your character because “you’re all engrossed in what the character would do.” This explains why Johnny is so believable; we don’t just believe the character, David Thewlis does too.
Thewlis tells The Guardian that he and the rest of the cast would go to the pub and other public places in character. Both Leigh and Thewlis say this process, while extreme at times, was “essential” to showcasing fully realized characters. naked plays the late great Katrin Cartlidge and Lesley Sharp, and both willingly fell into their Sophie and Louise characters for a long time too. Each of these women also plays a part in the themes of self-destruction, portraying women who fall for violent men and seemingly unable to help themselves. According to CriterionLeigh praised Cartlidge’s ability to “lose himself in the character”, yet retain the “objective eye of an artist”. Having lived in the self-destructive nature of their characters for months of improvisation, the cast followed their characters’ natural, contradictory reactions.
Despite the film’s authenticity and accurate portrayal of self-destruction, reactions to the film have been mixed, with some questioning whether the project glorifies misogyny given how much abuse and suffering can be seen on screen. That being said, naked presents characters who seem drawn to this destruction, especially Johnny, even though it hurts them every time. Mike Leigh’s naked is available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video in select countries and can be purchased on Blu-ray and DVD from The Criterion Collection.