{"id":7471,"date":"2018-09-11T08:06:27","date_gmt":"2018-09-11T12:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7471"},"modified":"2018-10-31T07:44:47","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T11:44:47","slug":"juliet-naked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7471","title":{"rendered":"Juliet, Naked"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Juliet,Predictably, I overheard a moviegoer say to the ticket-seller, \u201cI\u2019d like to see Juliet, Naked.\u201d You should see it too (trailer<\/a>)! Nick Hornby\u2019s novel has been turned into a highly entertaining romantic comedy directed by Jesse Peretz. The strong script is by Evgenia Peretz, Jim Taylor, and Tamara Jenkins.<\/p>\n

The story starts with an awkward website video, in which Duncan (played to hilarious effect by Chris O\u2019Dowd) rattles on about obscure American rocker Tucker Crowe, who has not been seen in decades, much less produced any new music. Duncan lives with Annie (the delectable Rose Byrne), who runs a small museum in a seaside British town. The museum\u2019s biggest attraction is a shark\u2019s eyeball, bobbing in formaldehyde.<\/p>\n

To the dismay of\u00a0 megafan Duncan, Annie doesn\u2019t especially appreciate Tucker Crowe, nor how his music has taken over their listening and the mystery of his disappearance their conversation. Like anyone obsessed with in a very small slice of life\u2019s enormous pizza, Duncan is tedious in the extreme. (Juliet, Naked is an album title, I think.)<\/p>\n

When Annie posts a few of her less flattering thoughts about Tucker Crowe on Duncan\u2019s website, Crowe himself (Ethan Hawke) responds. To her surprise, he agrees with her, and they begin a secret trans-Atlantic email correspondence. The two have great charm together, playing off each other and admitting their shortcomings. They\u2019re neither one perfect and able to admit it.<\/p>\n

Crowe is living in the center of the United States, somewhere, in a garage lent him by his ex-wife, and taking part-time care of their young son Jackson (Azhy Robertson). We soon learn another woman is the mother of his grown daughter, who\u2019s now pregnant, and he has twin boys by yet another. He\u2019s barely in touch with these children and totally out of touch with the daughter of his first love, Juliet.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s the pseudo-anonymity of email that encourages him to speak to Annie. When he has a trip to London, the face-to-face is awkward. It might be the beginning of a relationship, but there are a lot of kids and partners in the way.<\/p>\n

What I loved about this movie, in addition to the fine acting, is that the situation avoids the typical Hollywood relationship clich\u00e9s (which the movie Puzzle<\/em> fell prey to, disappointingly), and strives for honesty.<\/p>\n

Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> critics\u2019 rating: 80%; audiences: 90%.<\/p>\n

P.S. I love the crazy job titles that turn up in movie credits. In this one: \u201cPetty cash buyer.\u201d <\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Predictably, I overheard a moviegoer say to the ticket-seller, \u201cI\u2019d like to see Juliet, Naked.\u201d You should see it too (trailer)! Nick Hornby\u2019s novel has been turned into a highly entertaining romantic comedy directed by Jesse Peretz. The strong script … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Juliet, Naked - an engaging rom-com that avoids Hollywood's trite formulas.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[272,57,394,104],"tags":[519,324,1409,1274,1408],"class_list":["post-7471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comedy","category-movies","category-romance","category-the-morgue","tag-england","tag-ethan-hawke","tag-juliet-naked","tag-rock-and-roll","tag-rose-byrne"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1Wv","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7471"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7474,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7471\/revisions\/7474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}