Naked in New York. - movie reviews

National Review, May 30, 1994 by John Simon

* Critical praise and public acclaim are being lavished on Naked in New York, a first feature by young Dan Algrant, and at least some of the clamor is justified. Mr. Algrant started making short films at Harvard, and continued to do so at the Columbia Graduate School of Film. Naked in New York is clearly autobiographical, though the Cambridge sequences have an unfortunate New York look about them. We get the standard autobiographical fare: my first big love affair, and how and why it ended, and how I became a filmmaker--only here, in the interest of some fictional freedom, Jake, the hero, is a playwright.

There is, however, something slightly fishy here. The screenplay was co-written with one John Warren, about whom the press kit's lips are sealed. I would like to know more about Mr. Warren's input: of what nature and how substantial was it? In the eagerness (the producers'? Mr. Algrant's?) to make our young cineast a total auteur, John Warren may have been given the shaft. Indeed, why couldn't Mr. Algrant handle this very personal story all by himself? Is he perhaps not such an all-round talent?

The story could not be more basic. The precocious only child of a broken home, who, after the Christian father leaves, is brought up by his ditsy Jewish mother, our hero ends up at Harvard, where he is already a budding playwright. After some sexual experimentation, he hits upon Joanne, a fellow student. They become lovers and, following graduation, set up house-keeping in Cambridge. Jake works on his plays, Joanne is a budding photographer. Jake's college chum, Chris, goes to New York, and struggles to become an actor. He urges Jake to join him there, where the action for playwrights, too, seems to be. But Jake is too happy with Joanne, where he is. Then she gets a job at a smart art gallery, working for the very fancy and British Elliot Price, and Jake leaves for a spell in New York, where a producer, Carl Fisher, takes an interest in his work. At a party, Chris makes a pass at Jake; a homosexual, he has had a crush on him all along. Jake gently rebuffs him. He does not rebuff Dana Coles, the somewhat overripe soap-opera diva, who is the peg on which Carl is able to hang a production of Jake's play. Having seduced Jake, Dana goes after bigger fish. Jake hotfoots it back to Cambridge, only to discover that, for Joanne, Price is right. Jake breaks up with Joanne, and, driving back to New York, relives his life in flashback--that is the film we see. Jake is 26, and has come of age. We are a lot older, and have seen this movie before. Many times.

Still, there is no denying Mr. Algrant's flair. He has plainly been influenced by Woody Allen and, more distantly, the New Wave. He tells his story in quick, nervous, skit-like scenes. He uses the camera fluidly and flexibly. He has gags that are more than verbal, genuinely cinematic. Unlike, say, the insufferable Coen brothers (whose latest, The Hudsucker Proxy, is yet another elephantine, selfindulgent mess), he does not make a film-school film: he wears his influences lightly, rather than slavishly or ostentatiously. He shows touches of truly irreverent imagination, no matter if some don't come off. His celebrities in cameo roles are, for a change, mostly literary rather than cinematic ones. His humor is iconoclastic and un-self-serving. Plus he doesn't seem to take himself too seriously, and directs with a light enough touch to allow the actors freedom to bring something of their own to the endeavor.

But there are also less felicitous aspects. The film abounds in liberal cliches. The Jewish mother, no matter how spacey, is clearly a better person than the all too proper WASP father. Mother's best friend is a wise black woman. Jake's best teacher at Harvard is a wise black man. His best male friend is a sensitive homosexual. And so on. All of this is possible, but piled up in a heap it gives off too much of an odor of sanctity.

The casting is first-rate, down to the tiniest parts. Eric Stoltz is letter perfect as Jake--a bright, decent, slightly ridiculous fellow. Mary-Louise Parker is the epitome of the delicious, unconventional, slightly zany young woman with whom life is fun, though that fun may not be life. Ralph Macchio, though still looking too young, is a fine Chris. Tony Curtis has just the right mixture of joviality and sleaziness as Carl. Jill Clayburgh scores as silly Mom. Timothy Dalton makes Elliot properly (or improperly) suave and lascivious, and Lynne Thigpen, Kathleen Turner, and Roscoe Lee Browne are lovely as Mom's best friend, soapopera seductress, and sage drama teacher, respectively. Best of all, Whoopi Goldberg has only the tiniest of parts, which is about as much Whoopi as I can take.