Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise (2001)

After being allotted millions of dollars for the curiously ineffectual Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle The Beach, director Danny Boyle decided to cut the fat and shoot two featurettes for the BBC, both shot on inexpensive digital video and written by playwright Jim Cartwright. Of the two, Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise is the more strained effort, but for its first half at least, the film's hyper-real take on youthful ennui versus old-school capitalism is genuinely entertaining. Think of it as Death of a Salesman on speed, or perhaps Glengarry Glen Ross for the fish-and-chips DJ set. As the histrionic appliance salesman whose slovenly way of life is about to catch up with him, Timothy Spall has never been as animated. Freed from the sad-sack demeanor he's adopted in most of Mike Leigh's work, he's like a walking, talking boil waiting to pop. Unfortunately, after 30 minutes, Spall's spittle-spewing dialogue gets to be a little too much to take, and supporting salesman Michael Begley is a little too meek to counterbalance the weight -- both literal and figurative -- of Spall's performance. Still, the film is made with enough scruff and ingenuity to succeed as a gritty slice-of-a-pathetic-life satire. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide