At a recent New York premiere screening, Juliet, Naked director Jesse Peretz told an audience of friends and well-wishers that adapting a Nick Hornby novel is daunting. So many good movies have been made from Hornbys books, and Peretz didnt want to be the one to break the streak. In truth, only three films have been made from Hornbys novels—two of them great (High Fidelity and About a Boy) and one just O.K. (Fever Pitch). Still, I can understand Peretzs worry. Happily, though, he neednt be concerned. Juliet, Naked—which Peretz adapted with a team of writers including his sister Evgenia (who is a Vanity Fair contributor)—is an affable charmer. It does Hornby proud.
Helping matters immensely is the presence of the films star, Rose Byrne. A resourceful, natural comedic actor (and a fine dramatic one too), Byrne brings piquant energy to Juliet, Naked, playing a bored and just slightly downtrodden woman whose innate smarts and spirit still shine through her brown mood. Its a calmly commanding central performance, un-showy but full of vim and wit. Byrnes Annie lives in a seaside town on the British coast and works as the curator at the local historical society. Shes got an irksome life partner in Duncan (Chris ODowd), a local media-studies professor (we see him lecturing about The Wire in one scene) who has an intense extracurricular obsession with an obscure-ish musician named Tucker Crowe.
Duncans fandom takes precedence over much else in the house, and in his relationship with Annie. So when Tucker (Ethan Hawke) enters their lives through the magic of the Internet, one would expect wild disruption. But Juliet, Naked is a gentler film than that, less concerned with the mechanics of celebrity (however small-scale that celebrity may be) and more with the aches and sighs of time, of fleeting opportunity and regretted years. Annie worries shes wasted the last 15 of her life, while Tucker is pretty much certain he threw away two decades, alienating himself from the five children he has from different mothers. That ruefulness is mulled over throughout Juliet, Naked, softly bringing its characters to places of change and realization.
Hawke and Byrne have a nice chemistry, handling an offbeat and initially epistolary romance with wary sweetness. Juliet, Naked is surprising in its emotional contours, hitting familiar beats from different angles or, occasionally, taking the story in wholly unexpected directions. Its also an admirably friendly film—even Duncan, whos a bit of a lout, is shown to be decent when it really counts. Peretz keeps the film running at an amiable patter, occasionally dipping into melancholy, or bright little bursts of comedy. The best word for the movie might be agreeable. Its easy to glide along on its good-natured path.
Which also means the movie lacks friction, and thus any real heat. Its not hard to see why the movie got a bit lost in the Sundance shuffle when it premiered there this past January. Theres not much to grab onto—no quotable jokes or antic set pieces. Juliet, Naked may be a bit too easygoing for some people, its pleasant ramble failing to arrive at a satisfying enough point. But Im on the movies particular wavelength; I like its quaint scale and modest ambition, the way it introduces a fairly high concept but plays with it in low-concept ways. That feels very Hornby, the mix of a clever hook (a faded rockstar comes to town!) with more quotidian human entanglement.
And, again, theres Byrne, who demands a certain kind of sympathy in everything she does, even when shes playing the villain. (Which shes done brilliantly in two Paul Feig movies, Bridesmaids and Spy.) Its not easy to do what she does so well here, making the films comedy seem so organic. She has some reaction shots in Juliet, Naked that are laugh-out-loud funny, and yet not at all outsized. Byrne keeps things perfectly subtle, never mugging or betraying the scene to get an easy laugh. Shes a great performer, and Juliet, Naked is, in its quiet way, a perfect showcase for what she can do.
So, if youre in need of a change of pace after all the Sturm und Drang of summer blockbusters, not to mention that of the harrowing Eighth Grade, you could do far worse than Juliet, Naked. Its a warm and genial little movie, a well-acted, funny-sad story of people doing the slow work of waking up, renegotiating their world with the guarded optimism we sometimes afford ourselves in adulthood. The film is arriving at just the right time, as we head into fall and make back-to-school promises to ourselves to do it right this year (even if were not technically still in school). We may not stay our shiny new selves for long, but, as Tucker Crowe might say, hey, at least we tried.
Get Vanity Fairs HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Richard LawsonRichard Lawson is a columnist for Vanity Fair's Hollywood, reviewing film and television and covering entertainment news and gossip. He lives in New York City.
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