Naked in New York

Jake is approaching the magic thirties and the crisis that usually follows. At the same time as his debut play is about to be staged off-Broadway his relationship with the love of his life, Joanne, begins to crumble. She, on the other hand, tries to make it as a photographer, and in the end she sleeps her way to the top. For the seriously hip people of New York's hectic art scene, it is hard to find the balance between Art, Career and Love.

COMMENTARY
Jake grew up fatherless in New York, surrounded by a lot of women. He is sent to boarding school where he takes an interest in the theater, discovers sex and soon afterwards makes his debut as a talented playwright. And then he meets Joanne, his first love who he decides to live with. Everything is very cosy and protected until both Jake and Joanne begin to feel the pressure to make a career, he as a playwright, she as a photographer. They are forced to face a reality which gradually grinds their teenage dream of Love and Art as the ultimate in greatness to pieces.
Anyway, what is sensational about this modest and entertaining film is the starry crowd of extras. As Jake's neurotic mother we see Jill Clayburgh. Jake's best friend is played by Ralph ''Karate Kid'' Macchio who makes a sensitive portrayal of a vulnerable and insecure young actor who desperately tries to get a foot into the glamorous world
of theater. As the gl-eat manager Carl, who says that Jake's first playoff-Broadway stinks though he likes it, we see Tony CUliis. The character reminds you of the verbal, to say the least, but also ruthless film producer in Barton Finlc Joanne, the girlfriend, gets acquainted with a sophisticated gallery owner, played by Timothy Dalton, who is looking for more than a professional relationship.
Daniel Algrant makes his debut with Naked in New York, which he both wrote and directed. He has made a film that is basically about being fatherless, about how the unsophisticated Jake reaches maturity and becomes a man. In the same way as in Barton Finl<, Algrant also uses dream sequences and absurd hallucinations which appear at critical moments in Jake's life. But they are without any exceptions benevolent, they are helpful to the hero, almost comical. The two leading actors Eric Stolz and Mary-Louise Parker make a good job of it, in a story which prefers to be edifying, rather than disappearing into the two young people's - and the American middle-class' - black hole. ':'
Tony Samuelsson