Juliet Naked |
Annie (Rose Byrne) is stuck in a long-term relationship with Duncan (Chris O'Dowd) .. an obsessive fan of obscure rocker Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke).
When the acoustic demo of Tucker's hit record from 25 years ago surfaces its release leads to a life-changing encounter with the elusive rocker himself. Based on the novel by Nick Hornby JULIET NAKED is a comic account of life's second chances.
Official Trailer (2018) Ethan Hawke Rose Byrne Comedy Movie HD
Review
Juliet Naked
Monica Castillo - August 17 2018 | rogerebert.com
Even in a rambling romantic dramedy like Jesse Peretz's "Juliet Naked" Rose Byrne is a gem to watch. Anchored in a sleepy coastal town in Britain with a free-loving sister a dead-end job and a deadbeat boyfriend Byrne's character Annie somehow remains undefeated. She hopes against the odds that something in her life will change her monotony. Perhaps having those kids she's been thinking about a lot lately. Eventually Annie realizes that if she wants things to change she's going to have to do it for herself.
Were it not for Byrne's endearingly optimistic performance most of the charm of "Juliet Naked" would be swept away. Her relationship with her longtime boyfriend Duncan (Chris O'Dowd) is one of dreary complacency. My nerves wore down quickly watching him scold her for not loving what he loves (a musician named Tucker Crowe) ignoring what she says or pursuing a co-worker because she likes his music better than Annie. The arrogance in his careless actions hurt to watch and it pained me to watch his petulant entitlement lord over Annie. Were Annie our friend we might have staged an intervention to get her away from such a boor.
As the movie forcefully positions the audience to root against Duncan a surprise figure appears: Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke) the mysterious singer-songwriter Duncan obsesses over. However the artist doesn't connect with his superfan. Instead he reaches out to his online critic Annie who panned one of his acoustic bootlegs titled "Juliet Naked." Their email correspondence grows deep and revealing and soon he arranges to meet her. But he's another personal mess of a different kind-a man with several kids from different women and wives and who lives in a barn behind an ex's house. In voiceover Annie contemplates single motherhood and she's got a point between the two men in her life.
There are some moments of suspense when watching Annie figure out if she will or won't take a chance on a down-and-out American musician or go back to her droll partner who may finally have listened to her on the whole having kids issue. Peretz's movie which is based on Nick Hornby's novel of the same title is not without its sincere moments. One memorable scene takes place over a heated dinnertime debate between Duncan professing his love of Tucker's work and Tucker who's dismissive of almost any praise. It becomes an argument of what artists mean to fans and how art belongs to fans instead of the artists. The discussion is cut short because of Duncan's temper and the moment felt cheated out of what it was trying to explore for a dramatic shortcut.
Some aspects of the story feel overly familiar especially when it comes to Duncan's macho one-upmanship against Tucker. It's predictably tiring. The messy aspects of Duncan and Tucker's lives threaten to suffocate Annie's life and by extension the audience. In more than one scene Duncan talks over her without a hint of irony and while it's played as a joke it feels more accurate than farcical. We watch Annie's frustration grow along the edges of her face and we grow angry for her. In a number scenes like this the movie pushes our emotions in a certain direction too forcefully even if we don't want to pushed that way.
In all the awkwardly titled "Juliet Naked" collects another dependable performance out of Byrne a raggedy character part for Hawke and gives O'Dowd the chance to play awful boyfriend material but it's not enough to fall in love with. The story's predictable arc doesn't leave enough to the imagination and like Annie we might start hoping for change just to shake things up in this sleepy plot.
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