Juliet, Naked

Based on a book by Nick Hornby, Juliet, Naked follows Rose Byrne’s Annie as she unexpectedly begins an online friendship with a reclusive musician (Ethan Hawke’s Tucker Crowe) worshipped by her oblivious boyfriend (Chris O’Dowd’s Duncan). Filmmaker Jesse Peretz does a fantastic job of initially drawing the viewer into the familiar yet pervasively affable proceedings, with the movie certainly benefiting quite substantially from the various actors’ thoroughly affable work here. (Byrne is especially compelling as the film’s conflicted protagonist, while both Hawke and O’Dowd deliver typically solid turns as, respectively, Annie’s potential new love interest and her distracted beau.) Juliet, Naked, as a result, is generally at its best when focused on the low-key exploits of its characters, and there’s little doubt that the chemistry between the three leads certainly plays a central role in confirming the picture’s success. It’s clear, too, that scripters Evgenia Peretz, Jim Taylor, and Tamara Jenkins generally manage to infuse the somewhat predictable narrative with better-than-expected sequences, including a touching interlude in which Hawke’s Tucker recounts the details of his last show more than 20 years ago. And although the film admittedly does falter in its final stretch (ie there reaches a point where the story could (and should) end and yet things proceed for another 10 minutes or so), Juliet, Naked, for the most part, nevertheless comes off as a charming little dramedy that’s rife with appealing, likeable elements.

*** out of ****