Naked 1993

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: Mike Leigh's Naked is a great one -- a film of brutal impact, withering wit and humanity. It deserves one of the highest accolades movies can receive: Seeing it shakes you up, changes your vision. Read more

Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune: David Thewlis gives an unforgettable performance. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Naked is a mesmerizing character study, an attempt to stretch the emotional boundaries of truth on film as far as they will go. Read more

Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel: By the end of the film, there's even something vaguely inspirational about our antihero's painful journey through the bowels of his self-created hell. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: Naked is a revelation, a parable of spiritual homelessness and the terror it engenders. Read more

John Hartl, Seattle Times: Thanks to David Thewlis' performance, which has been collecting prizes since last spring's Cannes Film Festival, Johnny's energy and ferocious wit outweigh his brutishness. Read more

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine: Thewlis, who won the best-actor prize at Cannes for a performance so perfectly perverse that much as you want to, you cannot turn away. Read more

Vincent Canby, New York Times: A brilliant somersault of a movie that lands this fine English director in dark new cinematic territory. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: Sorting out the intelligence from the hysteria is no easy matter, and the picture rubs our noses in this uncertainty so remorselessly that we sometimes forget that what we're watching is largely a comedy. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: As immersive and well-acted as any character study Leigh's done, but ultimately numbing in its insistence on focusing on this would-be world-wary philosopher. Read more

David Ansen, Newsweek: Watching this lost soul's flaming descent is a disturbing yet exhilarating experience. Leigh makes art out of his own ambivalence. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: This movie is brutal and raw, and its sense of humor comes with a serrated edge. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: 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. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: The cast is outstanding -- Thewlis, in particular, whose virtuoso performance gives the film its cruel energy, wit and power. Read more

Derek Elley, Variety: Though recognizably a Leigh movie, with its gallery of Brit eccentrics, Naked dwarfs anything the director has done to date, with a resonant, beautifully modulated script that builds to a bleak but basically optimistic portrait of post-'80s Blighty. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: Lest this be forgotten in the controversial mix: The movie is also funny, endearing, wry, insightful and poignant. Isn't that entertainment? Read more

Rita Kempley, Washington Post: It's hard to be sympathetic to any of this lot of losers, who make the cast of Alfie look like the road company of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Read more