Soundtracking: Juliet, Naked

by Chris Feil

Musical standom sometimes has more to do with defining ourselves than it does the music itself. Instead, the music is just the key that unlocks something within us and lays a foundation for obsession over an artist’s life and legacy. That obsession is fueled online, between warring factions of “teams” and Reddit board investigations of creative minutiae in search of greater meaning, no musician safe from the scrutiny. It’s almost entirely separate from the music that inspires the standom. That divide between musical obsession and connection is at the core of Juliet, Naked, a film as delightfully revisitable as an underrated album.

The film’s stan is Chris O’Dowd’s Duncan, who has devoted his life to the one hit album and following disappearance of Tucker Crowe, a late grunge-era rocker played by Ethan Hawke. Duncan leads an online community of conspiracy theorists devoted to dissecting Tucker’s album “Juliet” and his potential whereabouts. This musical man-child is the surest sign that the film comes from a Nick Hornby novel, but Duncan’s room devoted to Tucker Crowe concert posters and paraphernalia is intentionally much less winsomely viewed as Hornby displayed with High Fidelity - maybe he looked back and cringed. 

But even Duncan’s idol Tucker Crowe, a quintessential plaid pretty boy deified as an emotional guru, turns out to be pretty much a dick who also has some accountability to grow into. As much as his music sounds like a sound capsule artifact to the audience in its 90s denim angst, Tucker (and especially his stans) similarly feels stuck in time. A soundtrack full of songs sung by Ethan Hawke feels like something entirely feasible around the time of Reality Bites, right?

Tucker Crowe is a scourge for Duncan’s girlfriend Annie (Rose Byrne), and we’re immediately aware that that one album Juliet represents both their stalled relationship and all of Duncan’s immaturity. Annie surprisingly is the one to appreciate beyond the idolatry - a demo bootleg dubbed “Juliet, Naked” arrives in the mail for Duncan but instead she listens first, finding something of her own disappointment in this unvarnished sound. First she zones out to its melancholy and then she vocally rejects it online, just like how she has avoided facing all that is wrong between her and Duncan.

Sometimes it takes hearing the overly familiar in a brand new way to see the thing as it really is, and for Annie, “Juliet, Naked” stirs her to start demanding the things she really wants and deserves out of life.

“Juliet” is a breakup album, and Juliet, Naked tricks us into thinking its just a breakup movie. Instead, just as Annie discovers something in Tucker’s music and later the man himself, its really a story of self-awareness and actualization. For Tucker, the idolized star persona is also something to be outgrown, and it’s reconnecting to the musicality he abandoned that does so. Performing for the first time for an audience since falling off the grid, he sings The Kink’s “Waterloo Sunset” more for his son than for the small crowd. It’s a small step, but it feels like growth.

All Soundtracking installments can be found here!

Comments

[George P.]

This film was actually one of those cases where I felt it improved upon the book. I enjoyed the songs during this, as well as the analysis!