Naked

“Have you ever seen a dead body?” “Only my own.” What happens when someone understands suffering but learns nothing from it? After fleeing Manchester, Johnny roams London in a futile attempt to escape his own weaknesses. He searches for intimacy but is scared to show vulnerability, so he tries to use his performative intelligence and philosophical ramblings as a shield to displace conversations away from anything personal. This film shows the complexity of morality in society: the poor intellectual (Johnny) can also be cruel and abusive, contrary to what most people believe. He is contrasted with the character Jeremy, who does similar acts of sexual abuse, but seems worse in viewers’ eyes, mainly because he’s rich and freely abuses without a need to mask it with manipulation, while Johnny doesn’t. Is Jeremy worse due to him being openly predatory, instead of masking his urges? After all, both characters have the same instincts. Naked emphasizes how there is an opportunity cost to our every desire, and we need to find out which desire is worth sacrificing for. A lack of such a decision will leave you miserable and self-destructive, just like Johnny.