Jesse Peretz
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Connections, in both directions
All that matters is that this is a witty and terribly charming rom-com that deserves to be mentioned in the same swoony breath as Four Weddings and a Funeral , Notting Hill and, more recently, The Big Sick .
A glance at the premise might suggest some shared DNA with Notting Hill — regular Joe (or Josephine in this case) enjoys unlikely romance with a celebrity — but that’s true only in the sense that The Sopranos is genetically related to Analyze This .
The romantic subplot thankfully never overtakes the personal torments of the characters, but it still plays out like a gender swapped riff on Notting Hill .
From there, the film becomes half- Notting Hill and half- You’ve Got Mail .
Looming equally large as a creative force is Nick Hornby, author of the original book as well as the novels that inspired “High Fidelity” and “About a Boy.”
Fans of High Fidelity will recognize echoes of Rob Gordon and the boys from Championship Vinyl in Duncan’s passion for all things Crowe.
He’s a spiritual cousin to the boy-men who spend their lives debating rock in Hornby’s High Fidelity and the self-indulgent TV-loving bachelor in About a Boy.
While the final act is a bit messy in comparison to author Nick Hornby’s previous adaptations (“About A Boy” and “High Fidelity”) And Peretz seems to struggle, at times, with aspects of the storytelling (It gets confusing figuring out whose story needs to be told).
Music fandom among males is a specialty of author Nick Hornby (see: the vinyl nerds, on page and screen, of High Fidelity ), and the British writer continues his probe into the pathology of rock obsession with Juliet, Naked.
Another film version of a music-based romance from the pen of Brit Nick Hornby (“High Fidelity,” “About a Boy”), Jesse Peretz’s “Juliet, Naked” tells the arguably Oedipal tale of a unique love triangle.
Director Peretz allows certain expectations to settle in (including several instances where the film feels like a UK-set remake of You’ve Got Mail), but then subverts them at nearly every turn, with the exception of a neat-little-bow ending that seems unnecessary.
Ever since You’ve Got Mail , filmmakers have struggled to generate sparks from two people in separate locations tapping on keyboards, accompanied by voice-over recitation of what they’re writing.
Is this a “You’ve Got Mail” situation, or is it something more complex than that?
From there, the film becomes half- Notting Hill and half- You’ve Got Mail .
There’s no nudity in Juliet, Naked, so get your mind out of the gutter and into Nick Hornby’s indie-music, trans-Atlantic spin on You’ve Got Mail.
This leads to an email correspondence, “You’ve Got Mail”-style.
What about when Richard Curtis made a time-traveling redux of Love, Actually with About Time ?