About A Fanboy

Bittersweet, Apatow-produced Nick Hornby adapt  JULIET, NAKED strips back the romcom-dram formula to explore obsessive fandom and wasted potential amid the improv-ed laughs. Total Film pulls up a deckchair with stars Rose Byrne, Ethan Hawke and Chris O’Dowd on the seaside set.

- Matt Maytum

 

It’s grey and overcast at the beach, and in the distance a woman and two men are in the midst of an awkward conversation. Introductions are made and faces drop. “Yeah, and I’m Stevie fucking Wonder!” grunts one of the men before running off. They go again. “Yeah, and I’m Mariah fucking Carey!” Again. “Yeah, and I’m Art fucking Garfunkel.” Improv maestro Chris O’Dowd is trying various different combinations during a key scene in romantic dramedy Juliet, Naked, and each time he picks a different musical fucking icon to end on. The dialogue in the scene chops and changes with each new attempt, but however it goes, O’Dowd’s character is never happy about the new guy (Ethan Hawke) that his ex-partner (Rose Byrne) is introducing him to.

It’s August 2017, and Total Film’s on a picturesque beach in the seaside town of Broadstairs, Kent. Today it’s doubling for the fictional (but no less picturesque) seaside town of Sandcliff, the central location of Juliet, Naked, the latest film to be adapted from a Nick Hornby book. While on the surface it looks set to tick the classic British romcom tropes, there’s much more going on underneath. This being Hornby-based, there’s a wry look at pop-culture fandom from both sides of the equation, and an underlying nostalgic, melancholic look at opportunities missed and lives half-lived. And men struggling to grow up, of course.