Naked (1993)

Synopsis: Mike Leigh's NAKED is a violent, penetrating study of an angry young man who lives a dark night of the soul wandering through London's depths, preaching humanity's inevitably approaching demise. After a sexual confrontation--possibly a rape--Johnny (David Thewlis) flees his native... Mike Leigh's NAKED is a violent, penetrating study of an angry young man who lives a dark night of the soul wandering through London's depths, preaching humanity's inevitably approaching demise. After a sexual confrontation--possibly a rape--Johnny (David Thewlis) flees his native Manchester for London, where he hopes to find shelter with his ex-girlfriend Louise (Lesley Sharp). Full of fury and blessed with a caustic wit, he rails futilely at all the societal mechanisms that oppress him, but vents his rage at women in particular. He immediately attacks Louise's bourgeois career aspirations, and pits her against her vulnerable, drugged-out roommate, Sophie (Katrin Cartlidge), in a competition for his affections. When Johnny begins to chafe under Sophie's desperate neediness, he disappears aimlessly into the city, where he meets a variety of social outcasts, including an alcoholic waitress (Gina McKee) and a lonely security guard (Peter Wight). Disgusted with the ever-present savagery of post-modern Britain, Johnny eventually returns to Louise after he is viciously beaten up. There, he encounters Jeremy (Greg Cruttwell), a mirror image of himself in the guise of a modern materialist, who has abused Louise and Sophie in even more humiliating ways. One of the most intense and sardonic films of the 1990s, NAKED features an electrifying performance by Thewlis. [More]