Themes: Class Differences, Musician's Life, Fish Out of Water
Main Cast: Timothy Spall, Michael Begley, David Crellin, Katy Cavanagh, Sandra Gough
Release Year: 2001
Country: UK
Run Time: 75 minutes
Plot
British filmmaker Danny Boyle offers a darkly comic glimpse of life in Britain in this short feature (shot on digital video equipment) produced for the BBC. Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise concerns Tommy Rag (Timothy Spall), a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman whose passion for salesmanship firmly outstrips his scruples. Tommy's new partner on his route is Pete (Michael Begley), a younger man who has dreams of working in the music industry. Pete's girlfriend, however, demands that he get a steady job, and has decided to withhold sex until Pete starts bringing home a steady paycheck. Tommy coaches Pete in his ruthless and shameless sales techniques, and together they start selling an impressive number of vacuums; Tommy thinks they may both be up for Salesman of the Year, but then Pete has to consider what could be a better offer. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
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
Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise, is one of two TV films directed by Danny Boyle in 2001; the other was Strumpet. A satire on door-to-door salesmen, it features Timothy Spall and Michael Begley in the lead roles.
