Juliet, Naked

It is a great pleasure to report that Juliet, Naked, cowritten and directed by Jesse Peretz from Nick Hornby's novel, is a funny but gentle film about adults having quiet conversations about their emotional needs. Such a film could only have been released in the late summer trough between blockbuster season and upcoming autumn award seekers, but the release date does provide an opportunity to put one cast member's work into context. Ethan Hawke plays Tucker Crowe, a musician with one beloved album who has been out of both the music scene and the public eye for over twenty years.  (Crowe's songs are performed by a Hawke-led band and sound something like Paul Westerberg's solo work.) When we catch up with Tucker he is living in his ex-wife's garage and happily helping to raise his young son Jackson (Azhy Robertson). One of Tucker's older children (Ayoola Smart) from another relationship comes to visit, and her hesitation with her father reveals that Tucker is a man who has only recently come to grips with the consequences of his life choices. Indeed, a scene later where Tucker is confronted by several figures from his past feels like an answer to questions about life that a younger Nick Hornby was asking in High Fidelity. Anyone seeing Hawke both in Juliet, Naked and in Paul Schrader's First Reformed from earlier this year may be struck by the actor Hawke has become. Both Tucker and the priest that Hawke plays in the Schrader film are men with regrets in their past. The priest has internalized his pain and can barely suppress his sense of spiritual emptiness, but Tucker is energized by caring for his son and eager to be the best man he is capable of being. Both characters have been weathered by life, and in Juliet, Naked Hawke wears the years on the outside - though several younger images of the actor serve to represent Tucker's rock star days. In these two films Hawke seems like an actor who isn't pushing too hard to achieve what he wants, and the performances are worthy stops along the way of a career that is looking more interesting as Hawke gets older.

Tucker comes into the story of Juliet, Naked through Annie (Rose Byrne), whose long-term boyfriend Duncan (Chris O'Dowd) administers a fan site for Tucker Crowe obsessives. Duncan is the type of academic who teaches a university course on The Wire, and Annie is beginning to wonder if Duncan's cultural obsessions have gotten in the way of their relationship moving forward. Seeing Rose Byrne at the center of a film is a treat. Byrne is more than capable of playing the dramatic notes, but as anyone who has seen films like Neighbors knows, she is also unafraid to go for laughs. In Juliet, Naked she gets to do it all as Annie realizes that there is a life outside her English seaside town. (There is a subplot about Annie putting together an exhibit of vintage photos and mementos at the museum she runs, and the payoff is the only instance I can think of in a film where "elderly person cursing" is both funny and affecting.) Chris O'Dowd has less to do as Duncan, but the character allows Juliet, Naked - the title refers to a CD of previously unheard Tucker Crowe demos - to say a few things about fandom. Being obsessed with music and prestige television allows Duncan the illusion of a happy life, but it isn't a coincidence that it's a colleague who shares his taste that threatens his relationship with Annie by appealing to his vanity. Fandom as self-absorption feels on the nose, but Duncan is allowed moments of self-awareness and even a chance to remind Tucker that he can't know what the music he now dismisses has meant to other people.

Juliet, Naked ends in the only way it can really, with changes and a sense of life moving forward. While it is unlikely to spawn obsessive fans, it is a low-key charmer and a winning adult entertainment.