Juliet, Naked is a 2018 film starring Ethan Hawke, Rose Byrne and Chris O’Dowd and is based on the book of the same name written by Nick Hornby. Hornby has had almost all his fictional novels turned into films including High Fidelity, About a Boy, Fever Pitch and The Long Way Down, and Juliet, Naked fits alongside these titles perfectly.
Juliet, Naked is a story about a couple, Annie and Duncan, living in a slow English seaside town. Although having been together for years, the couple have no plans to marry or have kids and have hit what seems to be some sort of slump. They may not be happy and yet they aren’t unhappy enough to do anything about it.
On top of that, Duncan (played by Chris O’Dowd) has an overwhelming obsession with the rock star Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke) who disappeared halfway through a concert while he was touring his album ‘Juliet’, and hasn’t been seen since. When Annie (Rose Byrne) feels compelled to post on an online Tucker Crowe forum her quiet, seemingly boring life gets turned upside down.
Chris O’Dowd is a perfectly gloomy Irishman in the form of Duncan. He plays out the subtilties of Duncan’s obsession with Tucker really well and gets to flex his more comedic talents in the second half of the film. Ethan Hawke on the other hand is a great Tucker Crowe; a washed-up rockstar who is not running away from his past, but instead has stopped running and is just sitting on the ground, waiting for his past to catch up to him. It is interesting to see Hawke play out some more emotional and comedic aspects of this character and leave behind his usual intensity where it isn’t needed for this role.
The last of the main three characters
The uniqueness of Hornby’s stories always lies within the characters; these characters feel like real people as they’re not perfect and yet they’re not ‘bad guys’ – they are just simply humans doing their best to navigate love and life regardless of what mistakes they make along the way. Juliet, Naked is not a flashy, bright romantic comedy, but more a small glimpse into three regular lives that happen to circle around the same musician, and more importantly, the same album.
It’s a story of not only love and hope, but family, connection, and music. If you’re a fan of traditional, warm-hearted, sparkly romcoms this might not be for you; however, if you’re a fan of any of Hornby’s previous book-to-film adaptations (especially the earlier and equally music-infused High Fidelity) then you already know what you’re in for and you’ll thoroughly enjoy it.