Film Review: Naked Lunch

"Exterminate all rational thought. That is the conclusion I have come to." - Peter Weller

On the first viewing, I watched it all the way through, and for the first time ever I determined that this must be the weirdest film ever made.  That sentiment has now been completely supplanted by my exploration of David Lynch films, with Eraserhead and Inland Empire topping my list of weirdest movies ever seen.  Much like a Lynch film, however, Naked Lunch eschews the notion of developing a plot and focuses more on crafting a strange, surreal, nightmarish experience.  In this film, you can expect to dive into a world of walking talking bugs, mutating typewriters, and shady characters who are never what they seem.  There are a few shocking instances of strange imagery with strong sexual subtexts, and scenes of cold, wicked, disturbing murder.

Based partly on William S. Burroughs’ novel Naked Lunch and partly off of the author’s biography, the Naked Lunch film succeeds at taking an “unfilmable” subject and bringing it to the big screen.  It does so by establishing a solid baseline narrative, with the actual writing of the titular book as the main drive of the story.  As such, the film tacks on elements of the original book around that structure, and touches upon some stark themes regarding substance abuse and the breakdown of reality.  It’s pretty odd to slap together giant bugs and drugs with the writing process, but in its own twisted way the film makes perfect sense:  it’s basically the story of a writer (possibly William Burroughs himself) who abuses drugs to escape grief, but finds the purest escapism in his writing and winds up regressing further and further away from reality.

The film is competently-made, with quality photography and editing.  Acting can be rather dry, but Peter Weller is impeccable as the protagonist.  Judy Davis, Ian Holm, and Roy Sheider add some quality talent to mix.  Writing is pretty decent, especially in the way it builds the story from the given elements without using too much exposition, forcing the audience to interpret things for themselves.  This production has some wickedly awesome make-up effects; most other sets, props, and costumes are decent.  The music score is comprised of some really cool jazz.

David Cronenberg’s film is remarkable in many respects, especially in the way it takes a piece of literature without tangible form and shapes it into a something cinematically presentable.  However, it still stands as one of the most bizarre films I have seen, and chances are that you’d have to be a connoisseur of such cinema to truly enjoy this type of insanity (and you may need a strong stomach for certain scenes).  I’d say that if you enjoyed films like Eraserhead or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, then you may enjoy Naked Lunch as well.  For casual audiences, I can only recommend a rental, if at all interested.

4/5 (Entertainment:  Pretty Good | Story:  Uhhhh… | Film:  Good)