Truly Naked Film Review: Well-Meaning but Messy

A teenager feels the pressure of his father’s pornography business seeping into his own life in Truly Naked, a film that wants to make a bold statement but refuses to delve into its themes.

In any other story, this scene would have been sweet, and even poetic, but in Muriel d’Ansembourg’s film, it becomes the perfect way to describe the family at its center: the seventeen-year-old Alec (Caolán O’Gorman), and his dad Dylan (Andrew Howard, of The Accountant 2). As children and even infants, we are trained to instinctively react to our parents’ emotional cues; we rely on them to provide for us, but we’re just as quick to notice when they’re the ones who need our help, and make ourselves smaller to help them cope with life. But what happens when what your dad needs from you is for you to film him have sex with a bunch of girls?

Truly Naked starts from a simple but very clever premise: the empathetic, introverted Alec leads a very unusual life. Though he does goes to school like your average teenager would, he also doubles as an unpaid employee for his father, a small-time porn producer who also stars in his own movies, which are filmed at their house. And so, Alec isn’t just Dylan’s son; he’s also his photographer, video maker, graphic designer, and a jack of all trades who has gotten so used to seeing a very specific depiction of sex all around him that he’s never even questioned it.

Though he has zero experience himself, he’s just as comfortable with watching his father in action as he is with being surrounded by naked models. More than that, one model in particular, Alessa Savage’s Lizzie, has even become almost like an older sister to him, which feels particularly relevant to Alec as his mum died years before. But Alec and Dylan have just moved from London to a small seaside town, and things are about to change. When the former is paired with the fiercely feminist Nina (Safiya Benaddi) for a school project on sex addiction, Alec’s secret becomes more and more difficult to keep. When the truth comes out, and a relationship begins to take shape between the two teenagers, experiencing real connection with someone confuses Alec, ultimately leading him to finally confronting his own needs.

Truly Naked was a very ambitious project for writer-director d’Ansembourg, who’s no stranger to tackling taboos on screen: her previous project, short film Fuck-a-Fan (2024), revolved around the intimate relationship between a porn star and a broken-hearted fan. Prior to that, Good Night (2012), was about two 14-year-olds who discover extreme sides of sexuality on a secret night out. Her feature film had much promise, and it partly delivers on that, with a captivating protagonist whose life we’re immediately invested in, and gorgeous cinematography (Myrthe Mosterman) and editing (Emiel Nuninga) that draws us in from its stunning opening scene, holding our interest throughout.

The movie is also anchored by a fantastic lead performance from Caolán O’Gorman, to whom Truly Naked owes much of its emotional impact. His portrayal of Alec is so raw that it’s astonishing to think this is his on-screen debut; Safiya Benaddi, also in her debut role, excels as Nina too, and their chemistry makes their scenes together so effortless to watch. As Dylan, Andrew Howard had a difficult role to play, yet the humanity he brings to the role turns him into a sympathetic character despite his many flaws, which makes for compelling dynamics.

Sadly, despite the talent and technical execution, the film struggles to take its promising ideas anywhere. Truly Naked‘s opening scene shows Alec filming Dylan have sex with Lizzie while she’s cover in gold paint, purposefully treating us to many porn film clichés until Dylan ejaculates in Lizzie’s mouth to the latter’s pretence delight; ironically, Dylan’s “little gold-painted wh*re” worships him despite being the one who’s shining.

This brilliant (pun intended) metaphor introduces some of the film’s central questions: isn’t it time for the porn industry’s male-gazey depiction of sex to change and stop reducing women to objects of desire whose own pleasure doesn’t matter at all? Why should willingly engaging in an act whose sole purpose is to please a man be the only way for a woman to feel a sense of empowerment in this industry, and in society as a whole? And how can a woman’s own sexual needs and desires ever be taken seriously if new generations grow up learning that what they see in porn movies, and in the world around them, is the norm?

In its 102-minutes-runtime, Truly Naked asks these questions and more, and to its credit, there are some smart moments scattered throughout that reinforce these central ideas. A particularly poignant scene sees Nina ask Alec if “female friendly porn” would even exist “if the regular sh*t wasn’t so alienating,” and there’s a nice contrast between Lizzie’s activities with Alec’s dad and the woke t-shirts she makes as a hobby. Dylan is also an interesting character to analyze, as despite his refusal to see the harm he’s causing his son, there’s a certain sadness in him that shows us exactly what’s hiding behind his misogynist persona.

Yet, at the same time, the more Truly Naked unfolds, the more it loses sight of its many themes, jumping from Dylan and Alec’s father-son relationship to Lizzie and Nina’s self-worth, to Nina’s relationship with her feminist mother (who comes across as a way to give Nina more depth rather than a real person), to the porn industry as a whole, to Alec and Nina’s evolving feelings for one another and first approaches to sex – not to mention their school project, which feels more like a narrative device than anything, as it’s never even explained in full.

Halfway through the movie is when Truly Naked also became a little problematic to me, due to its use of underage characters to explore not their respective growth and predicaments, but sex and porn where adult relatives are involved. A puzzling scene sees Nina approach Alex’s father by strapping a, ahem, Dylan-shaped dildo to herself while Dylan is on the bed with his son right next to him. D’Ansembourg clearly must have meant for the scene to raise questions about sexual dynamics by showing us a reversal of roles where women can only feel empowered if men are humiliated – a scenario where men still have the privilege of choice. Still, it does feel a little uncomfortable to watch when Nina, a minor, was dressed up like that by the older Lizzie, and sexually approaches Alec’s father with his son right next to him.

More than that, the scene also feels unnecessary, as this specific subject isn’t even approached again. The most awkward scene in the movie comes later, though, and I won’t spoil it for you, but it does involve an animal and some gratuitous cruelty to Lizzie that I wish I could unsee. It’s not just a matter of the scene itself – one that was clearly meant to shock but that really has little purpose here – but also of the disservice it does Dylan’s character, nullifying his entire journey in the film and reducing him to a one-note antagonist instead. It also doesn’t help that we aren’t shown much of Alex’s own relationship with sex, which makes his actions during and after his first sexual experience of sorts with Nina – and Nina’s very unwoke reaction to it
– feel confusing and out of character for both teenagers.

All these detours, combined with the lack of exploration of Alec himself, take us further away from the promising story Truly Naked had started to tell in its fist half: that of a teenager who’s trying to find out who he is and what he wants in a universe that seems to revolve entirely around his father, and where men and women take on roles that reinforce the stereotypes we already see in society. And then, of course, there’s a father-son relationship that was affected by the loss of Alec’s mother’s, years prior, which could have enabled d’Ansembourg to explore masculinity and family dynamics in truly interesting ways.

In the end, the biggest issue with Truly Naked is that it plays things too safe, with an ending that draws our attention further away from the film’s most compelling elements. In the end, what the movie has to say is exactly what we had already learned in its opening scene alone: sex is best experienced by feeling it instead of watching porn’s depiction of it.

Despite Muriel d’Ansembourg’s best intentions, fantastic performances from Caolán O’Gorman and the cast, and impressive technical execution, Truly Naked ultimately fails to take its compelling premise anywhere, and ends up saying very little as a result.

Truly Naked premiered at the Berlin Film Festival on February 16-22, 2026. Read our Berlin Film Festival reviews and our list of 20 films to watch at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival!