The recent picture Juliet, Naked (2018)—in which no one gets naked—is amusing and poignant and pleasantly, vividly acted by Rose Byrne and Ethan Hawke. However, the story it tells is not as rich, or as interesting, as that in the Nick Hornby novel it derives from. In fact it becomes contrived and forced.
Scripted by two women and one man, it is skeptical of the male sex and, up to a point, traditional living. It ends with a dose of boring contemporary feminism: You can have it all, Annie (Byrne’s character)! Whether she can have it all or not, it’s hackneyed.
I’m sorry Nick Hornby was involved in the making of this film. His novel is a success. The film is not. It was directed by Jesse Peretz and produced by Judd Apatow, still a mediocrity.
