Juliet, Naked

2018 romantic comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: The girlfriend of a college professor obsessed with a retired and reclusive singer/songwriter begins exchanging emails with that singer/songwriter.

Hearing Ethan Hawke perform "Waterloo Sunset" was pretty special, but that might be a spoiler. I should confess that I only went to see this to hear Hawke singing what I'm assuming will be the Oscar winner for best original song, a lovely tune called "Sunday Never Comes" by none other than Robyn Hitchcock. The other songs aren't bad, but I kind of wished they had all been written by Robyn Hitchcock.

This got a ton of laughs in the theater, some of them deserved. It's really charming, and Chris O'Down was very funny. Hawke's playing a much different character than he did in First Reformed. This one almost seems a little too easy for him. There are dimensions, but they're the kinds of dimensions you would expect to see in a movie from the 1990s. Rose Byrne's as cute as a button, and there's a kid played by Azhy Robertson who is really good.

Frustrating details aside, I really liked what this has to say about the unknown contexts of works of art and the different meanings a work of art might have for the artist and the audience. I'm not sure this movie's trying to say anything all that profound, and it works as a simple story of redemption and second chances.

Oscar award winning songwriter Robyn Hitchcock. That sounds great!