The movie Natasha Lyonne urged everyone to see by themselves: “Watch it alone”
There are some films you’re simply better off seeing alone. While going to the cinema is an innately communal experience – you get to share a room with other intrigued patrons who you can laugh or cry along with – sometimes you just need to sit on your own with just the movie for company.
The thing is, we’ve all got different cinematic tastes, and sometimes, a movie that we want to watch might be enough to tip another person over the edge. The average person is probably not going to watch something like Salo or Caligula with you, so you must accept that, unless you find other like-minded film lovers with a slight taste for the perverse, you’re on your own.
It’s nice to watch films alone. You don’t have to experience that worry of having to bask in a shared sense of awkwardness when an uncomfortable scene appears on screen, nor do you have to be judged for selecting the film if the other person doesn’t like it. You can simply tune into the film and enjoy it without distraction – no one to ask you to pause it at a vital moment to get another snack or to request that ‘we finish watching it tomorrow’ because they’re ‘getting a bit sleepy’.
For Natasha Lyonne, there’s one film that she loves that she firmly believes you should just watch alone, although you should be warned, it’s one you’ll be thinking about for a long time afterwards. Picking out some favourites in the Criterion Closet, the actor highlighted her love for the Mike Leigh movie Naked, which emerged to acclaim in 1993. “This is David Thewlis at his best,” she explained, adding that she got “such a crush on him from this movie.” I assume she blocked out every moment in the movie when he did something absolutely despicable.
“Don’t watch that, like, if, you know, you pick up a skater, let’s say, in Tompkins Square Park, you bring them home. Then the morning after, you think, ‘I think this guy’s really going to get it. They’re gonna love Naked’. You put it on, you realise it’s, I don’t know, 2020. They don’t have the attention span for that. So watch it alone,” she explained.
The movie certainly isn’t going to be for everyone, with its slow and meditative approach to a nihilistic man’s wanderings and relationships. Thewlis is Johnny, who we’re instantly meant to feel coldly towards as the opening scene sees him having sex with a woman who begs him to stop hurting her. It’s an uncomfortable opening sequence that forces us to think critically, testing our patience to follow a protagonist with very few redeeming qualities.
Naked was widely praised when it came out, and it remains one of Leigh’s greatest achievements. Thewlis’ performance is incredible, as is one given by the late Katrin Cartlidge, who plays Sophie, a woman who Johnny seduces. It is certainly the kind of film you want to watch alone, not just because of some of its more taboo moments, but because it’s the type of movie that you really need to sit with and think about. Besides, you probably won’t be in much of a social mood once the film, in all its bleak and gritty glory, comes to an end.
