In the early 1990s, “problematic” was a term seldom heard. Almost three decades on, this seems like the film for which the word was invented. Jeremy rapes two women, and is unmistakably a villainous piece of well-groomed male rage. Johnny’s taste for rough sex is what will have audiences squirming at exactly how much consent is occurring during his surprisingly frequent couplings.

With his snark and point-scoring contrariness, Johnny would definitely be blogging and podcasting nowadays, shifting political leanings if one opinion became too fashionable. Jeremy would have found fellow travellers in the misogyny and violent porn that exploded online when highspeed broadband became the norm. Also here, as with the Criterion edition, BFI includes Leigh’s 17-minute short film, The Short & Curlies, starring Thewlis, Alison Steadman, Sylvestra le Touzel, and Wendy Nottingham. Compared to Naked it feels like a light, fluffy comic bit, though for this viewing it had a gloomier feel. The story kind of focuses around the awkward relationship between Thewlis’ character and a pharmacist (chemist) that he's trying to woo over. Their interactions are awkward, even painful in a variety of ways (like, for starters, how Thewlis’ character has to insert unfunny punchlines in every conversation), but the characters are so vividly fleshed out, from their disappointments to their hang-ups, despite nothing direct ever really being said.Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four out of four stars and analysed the message behind the title, saying it "describes characters who exist in the world without the usual layers of protection. They are clothed, but not warmly or cheerfully. But they are naked of families, relationships, homes, values and, in most cases, jobs. They exist in modern Britain with few possessions except their words." He praised the directing, writing: "[Leigh's] method has created in Naked a group of characters who could not possibly have emerged from a conventional screenplay; this is the kind of film that is beyond imagining, and only observation could have created it." He concluded: "This is a painful movie to watch. But it is also exhilarating, as all good movies are, because we are watching the director and actors venturing beyond any conventional idea of what a modern movie can be about. Here there is no plot, no characters to identify with, no hope. But there is care: The filmmakers care enough about these people to observe them very closely, to note how they look and sound and what they feel." [10] Nor do matters improve with the arrival of Sandra ( Claire Skinner), whose name is on the lease. She has a job, apparently thinks of herself as being normal and productive, and offers free advice and criticism, but the film invites us to see how precariously close she is to falling into the same abyss as her friends. In a Manchester alley, Johnny rapes a woman. When her family arrive and chase him away, he steals a car and flees to Dalston, a "scrawny, unpretentious area" in east London. He seeks refuge at the home of Louise, a former girlfriend from Manchester, who is not happy to see him. Louise works as a file clerk and lives with two flatmates, the unemployed Sophie, whom she calls her "hippy-dippy friend", and the primary tenant Sandra, a nurse who is away in Zimbabwe.

In his waking hours, the only thing that ever shuts him up is when he reads and fortunately, he does like to read. Johnny’s an auto-didact, razor sharp but from a generation where clever working-class teenagers weren’t always encouraged to go to university – his fellow Mancs Morrissey and Mark E. Smith spring to mind here. Come to think of it, Johnny’s nasal twang and some of his scalding wit do remind me of the much missed Mark E. Wonderfully, it looks as though the film has also received a new restoration and is presented in high-definition, unlike Criterion’s. Sadly, Leigh’s commentary from that release hasn’t been ported over. Being a Mike Leigh film, it’s best not to get your hopes up on ever finding out the answer to that one although there are hints.Since putting his schooldays behind him, Johnny’s only known Conservative rule. It’s 1993 and the countdown to 2000 has started with millennial anxiety on the rise – anybody else remember the Y2K scare? Homelessness is rife on the streets of Britain’s big cities, and unemployment is hovering around the 3 million mark with economists predicting it might soon rise by another half a million. Naked then. Challenging, horrifying, beautiful, objectionable, funny, exciting and exhausting. When was the last time you saw anything like that at the cinema? This is a painful movie to watch. But it is also exhilarating, as all good movies are, because we are watching the director and actors venturing beyond any conventional idea of what a modern movie can be about. Here there is no plot, no characters to identify with, no hope. But there is care: The filmmakers care enough about these people to observe them very closely, to note how they look and sound and what they feel.

The world is indifferent to them, and they to it. To some degree, they don't even know what's hit them. Johnny has a glimmer. His response is not hope or a plan. It is harsh, sardonic laughter. With thanks to Andy Willis and HOME, Manchester. Naked is also released to buy on Blu-ray on November 29th. So, is the film the working out of an idea of violence? It isn’t. The violence is an organic function of the characters. On the basis that people behave in all sorts of ways in private, and are vulnerable or susceptible to their own impulses in different situations.” The central character in "Naked" is Johnny ( David Thewlis), who as the movie opens has rough sex with a weeping girl in an alley in some barren northern city, and then steals a car and drives down to London. From the way he talks and certain things he refers to, we gradually conclude that he has had an education - is an "intellectual," in that his opinions are mostly formed from words, not feelings.BFI then closes the disc off with a new trailer advertising its restoration, along with a self-playing image gallery featuring production photos and posters from a handful of countries. BFI also includes a booklet featuring an essay by Caitlin Quinlan on the film’s structure, its toxic male characters, and how the film handles the two lead women in the film. This essay is then followed by an essay by Lou Thomas on how Leigh has presented London in his films. Notes around the disc’s supplements, written by Vic Pratt, close it off. Plus, Johnny is an emotional vampire. He cannot bring himself to be close to people, but feeds off their energy, leaving most encounters invigorated while the other party is drained. Note how often the character, vampire like, waits to be invited into someone’s home or workplace.