Juliet, Naked

Juliet, Naked

Posted on August 23, 2018 at 3:32 pm

B
Lowest Recommended Age: High School
MPAA Rating: Rated R for language
Profanity: Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs: References to alcoholism and drug abuse, alcohol
Violence/ Scariness: Medical issues
Diversity Issues: None
Date Released to Theaters: August 24, 2018
Date Released to DVD: November 13, 2018
Copyright 2018 Lionsgate

Nick Hornby understands passionate fans of rock music and the people who create it. His novel High Fidelity and the film starring John Cusack are classics. He also wrote About a Boy, the story of a man who, years after his father’s one novelty hit, is living off the royalties and not doing much else. It became a beloved film starring Hugh Grant and television series. He brought those two ideas together in Juliet, Naked, the story of a passionate fan and a faded rock star who are connected by the woman they both love.

Annie (Rose Byrne) cannot quite figure out how she got where she is and is even less able to figure out how to get anywhere else. When her parents died, she took over her father’s job as curator of a small history museum and raised her younger sister, who now works there with her. She has been living with Duncan (Chris O’Dowd), her boyfriend of 15 years, a professor of popular culture who shows his students clips from “The Wire” and who operates a fan site for the elusive Tucker Crowe, a rock star whose disappearance has only increased the interest in his one classic album, called “Juliet” and inspired by a break-up.

Duncan receives some previously unreleased Crowe songs, the original demos of “Juliet,” “naked” because they have no studio sweetening or instruments other than Crowe’s guitar. For a fan who obsessively collects Crowe arcana, this is the ultimate treasure. Annie, irritated with him for his fixation on a musician who has not released any new music in decades, writes a bad review of the new tracks on Duncan’s fan site, calling it a cash grab, and she gets an email from Crowe himself, agreeing with her. This leads to an email correspondence, “You’ve Got Mail”-style. And then to a meeting IRL.

The movie was directed by a real-life rock star, Jesse Peretz of The Lemonheads, and he has a feel for the life of a rock star and the life of a fan. He (and Hornby) have less of a feel for Byrne’s character, and even Byrne’s endless charm and skill cannot make up for an underwritten role. Hawke does better. Crowe is so shaggily rueful about his own failings as a performer, a person, and a father that we almost forget just how irresponsible he has been. It’s a slight story, but it’s a sweet one.

Parents should know that this film has very strong language, sexual references and non-explicit situations, references to alcoholism and drug abuse, references to irresponsible behavior, and a medical issue.

Family discussion: What makes some people into super-dedicated fans? Was Annie right about the museum exhibit?

If you like this, try: “About a Boy” and “High Fidelity”

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An Education

Posted on March 30, 2010 at 8:00 am

Part of the charm of “An Education,” a bittersweet coming of age story based on a brief memoir by Lynn Barber, is how much we know what its main character does not. Jenny (an incandescent Carey Mulligan) is a teenager in 1961 London, over-protected by her overly-cautious and conventional parents and eager to be independent and to have adventures. She is used to being the smartest one in the class and so even more than most teenagers, she is convinced that she understands many important things her parents cannot possibly comprehend. She is eager to grow up, to seem sophisticated, to be sophisticated. She is innocent, filled with potential, willing to be taught — and she has no idea how powerfully attractive those qualities are to a predatory older man.

But we know that, and when David (Peter Sarsgaard) rescues Jenny and her cello from a rainstorm by giving her a ride home, we know she will confuse urbanity with wisdom, that she will think that because he lies on her behalf he will not lie to her. But the most important thing we know is that like Jenny, London is also on the brink of enormous changes. We know that a world of opportunities she could never imagine will open up to her. Unlike Jenny, we know she is going to be fine. After all, we know she went on to tell her story, in itself a triumph over whatever went wrong and whatever she lost.

Danish director Lone Scherfig perfectly captures London just as it is about to move from the drab, stiff-upper-lip, world of post-WWII deprivation to the brash and explosive era of mods and rockers, Carnaby Street and the Beatles, Twiggy, “The Avengers,” and Joe Orton. Part of what makes David so exciting is that Jenny believes that the only options available to her are teacher and housewife and the only examples of both she has seen appear dull and unrewarding. David gives her a glimpse of a life that is never dull. It is always shopping and parties and travel, pretty clothes and lovely restaurants. If in order to have all of that she must lie to her parents and defy her teachers, that makes it all the more exciting. It binds her to him even more, creating a set of rules that is just for them.

That is how it seems, anyway. The education referred to in the movie title tells us that she will learn some difficult lessons. But its conclusion reminds Jenny and us that it is only the end of her beginning. She thought meeting David was the beginning of her future; she learns that the real beginning only came afterward.

The screenplay by Nick Hornby (“High Fidelity,” “About a Boy”) is sympathetic but insightful, skillful in sketching in each of the characters. Sarsgaard also makes David more than a predator. Jenny is not just smarter than he is; she is stronger, too. As Jenny goes from school girl to dressed-up doll to the beginning of adulthood, from the make-it-do, wear-it-out modesty of her home to Paris hot spots, Production designer Andrew McAlpine and costume designer Odile Dicks-Mireaux show exquisite sensitivity in giving Jenny a look that tells the story. Every performance is a gem: Alfred Molina, proud but fearful as Jenny’s father, Emma Thompson, starchy as the headmistress, and Olivia Williams, a teacher who wants more for Jenny than she wants for herself (it must have been quite a challenge for hair and make-up to turn Williams into such a dowdy character). Rosamund Pike is utterly charming as a dim but kind-hearted party girl. And Carey Mulligan, in a star-making turn, makes this into one of the best films of the year.

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Interview: Lone Scherfig of ‘An Education’

Posted on October 29, 2009 at 3:59 pm

Danish director Lone Scherfig (“Italian for Beginners”) has garnered a lot of attention for her first English language film, “An Education.” It is the story of a young woman impatient to be independent and sophisticated, and what happens when she meets an older man. It is set in 1961 London, on the brink of a shift from post-war deprivation to the wild and audacious era of Carnaby Street and the Beatles.
NM: I related to the film as a former young girl and as a parent — I identified with everyone.
LS: That’s good!
NM: The period detail is so exact. That era, on the brink of so much change, and you get that in the production design.
LS: It is a period that hasn’t been depicted much. The period itself is bursting with appetite for the future but doesn’t know what it will be.
NM: Like the main character!
LS: A lot of her frustration is because she is heading for a future that is better than she can imagine. She wonders why she should get an education just to have a life she did not want, the few options that were available to her. She does not know what she wants. She says she does not want to feel anything and the first thing she does is jump straight into the arms of this man. She is bright but still completely innocent.
My main task as a director was to trust the script, not to be over-inventive, just to tell the story. We don’t have soldiers getting killed; we have a girl who loses her trust in other people.
NM: The book was written by a woman based on her own life, but the screenplay was written by Nick Hornby, better known for writing about men and boys.
LS: This is the first time I’ve had a female main character. You are just interested in that other species. But now I am so far from being 17 — of course I can remember and I have a daughter who is 15, but I could not have done it 10 years ago. I have a warmth for a girl at that age now that I don’t identify with her any more.
Tell me about working with the lovely and elegant Rosamund Pike, who plays the not very bright girlfriend of a slightly shady character.
LS: She’s never done comedy before. I love casting against type. To have her inventing herself as a comedian as you go was very exciting. She combines some comedy and something melancholic. You can have very stylistically different characters but not stick out. We did a lot of variations. And it is wonderful to see her realize, “I can do this.” She does research and she does eight different takes trying out the mechanics of comedy. And she was the only person in the cast who had been to Oxford, so she helped us understand that environment.
NM: Is there a theme that you keep coming back to in the stories you like to tell?
LS: Insecurity, people who can’t speak for themselves, people who are slightly invisible, odd couples, men in their late 30’s. The more I do, the more I identify my own footprint as a director. Now I can look back and see where I’ve been. When the world has been in a bad way, I’ve felt “I must do comedy.” But now, I think I can do something darker.
NM: Will you make more films in English?
LS: Yes! There are so many wonderful English-speaking actors, a great acting tradition. And it’s a very rich language, more expressive and precise than my own language.
NM: There has been a lot of focus on your young star, Carey Mulligan, who is luminous in this movie. What was it about her that sang to you?
LS: Singing is a good word. She hit the right emotional notes. You feel for her. She was believable as someone who was a virgin. She has a good sense of taste in her acting, very versatile. I started working with her, even acted with her. The costume and hairstyle department were very important in helping her develop the character. That dress she wears the first night she goes out, much too warm, carrying her mom’s handbag, was perfect. The costume designer got a lot of personal photo albums instead of relying on magazines and reference books, we trusted in reality.

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