Closer, entre adultes consentants

I've seen Closer described as a cinematic triumph, but it's precisely not. The film wears its theatrical origins on its sleeve, and the presence of the camera is mostly irrelevant.

It also fails in a more subtle way. Initially, I watched four apparently amoral people, devoid of depth or shame, being clever at each other in increasingly hurtful and exploitative ways, and my mind rebelled. This can't be right, I thought, people don't talk like this. Hell, people don't *act* like this.

Then the light dawned. The characters seemed inhuman because they are. They aren't people at all, they're philosophical positions. When they talk, they're not talking. They're saying the things that people only dare think, asking the questions that haunt anyone whose relationship has gone horrifically pear-shaped. This isn't the story of four people and four relationships, it's an attempt to compress everything the author believes about human relationships into a film and bend it into a story. It feels artificial because it is.

With that realisation, I actually began to enjoy it, because Closer is a very clever film. I wish I could disagree with more of it, because many of the things it has to say about human relationships are painfully true. Every mistake you've ever made in a relationship is in here, and it's guaranteed to make you squirm at least once. It's also blackly funny in many places.

Without exception, the performances are fantastic, with the honours going to Natalie Portman's emotionally scarred escapist who wears lies like they were armour, and Clive Owen's brutal, perceptive, and ultimately absolutely human dirty doctor.

Be warned! The marketing campaign may lead you to think it's a comforting rom-com, but it's not. I wouldn't advise going with your partner unless you're rock-solid. You may leave asking some uncomfortable questions, and wondering how well you really know them...

I couldn't wait to see this movie. Now, I realize I should have waited to see this movie until it could be rented.

This is a very cold film about some very unpleasant people who don't seem to be able to make up their minds about much. I liked the way it was done, I loved the acting, and I loved the use of "Cosi Fan Tutte" throughout the film.

Yet it left me feeling empty. I never saw the play, but I imagine it was quite powerful. As a film, it had a deadly detachment.

Certainly when one looks at a film like Virginia Woolf, also based on a play, also directed by Mike Nichols, also about some unpleasant people, one wonders why Woolf came off so well and this one didn't (for me, anyway). I think it's because Virginia Woolf is an incredible love story - at the end, when George explains that they're childless, and Martha says "We couldn't" referring to having a baby, one realizes what's underneath all of the unpleasantness.

In "Closer," there's just no payoff. Four people change partners, hurt one another, are seemingly incapable of doing anything else, but no one tells us why. Only the Natalie Portman character shows some humanity. But some isn't enough.

Mike Nichols is a fabulous director, but the direction wasn't the problem here. It's the characterizations. I can't agree with some of the other posters that the film was fascinating. I didn't find it so. The theater was packed because of good reviews. I suppose the critics are hungry for something intelligent, and obviously the ticket-buying audience is, and who can blame them?

But don't tell me this is the best you can come up with. When everybody walks out of the theater complaining, as they did after the showing I attended, there's a problem.

This movie is a big game of narcissistic people who treat each other as puppets. There is no love, no truth, no good. In the beginning we all try to find a hero in the story, someone to sympathize with only to realize what we have is a bunch of mentally ill people making themselves suffer. Dan (Jude Law) is just a big kid longing for attention and a new toy, which he only cares for about 5 mins. Anna (Julia Roberts) is also desperate for attention and love since her ex left her for a younger girl. She is confused and unreasonable, her ego makes all the decisions instead of her mind. Larry (Clive Owen) is an agressive jerk, playing along Dan's little game, while Alice is just a naive, traumatized, young girl who falls in love and decides to avoid all the red flags and becomes part of this sick 4 some. Brilliant movie. Honestly not the ending what I hoped for tho (I just wanted all 4 of them together in a room while Slim Pickens rides the atom bomb there).

What a treat. Most of the people who came with me, left, half way through the film. I stayed to the end and I loved it. It moved me. A rarity this days. The face of Jude Law is, still, so full of possibilities. He seems unafraid of darkness. Strong. This is his most grown up performance. I can't wait to see what he'll become. (If he stays away from Hollywood as much as temptations permit, and keeps that purity, that makes his darkness so powerful, as intact as humanly possible). Julia Roberts is wonderful in a performance part Margaret Sullavan, part Jeanne Moreau but all her own. Clive Owen is a force of nature. Dangerous, compelling, human to the hilt. And what about Natalie Portman? Wow. No surprise here. But what a surprise. I'm sure she is going to amaze us for years and years to come. I'm really glad I stayed to the end.

Mike Nichols directed, in my opinion, one of the three best adaptations from stage to screen. "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf" (The other two being Sidney Lumet's "Long day's journey into night" and Elia Kazan's "A Streetcar named Desire) After the extraordinary television adaptation of "Angels in America" I also would have pleaded with Mike Nichols to do "Closer" Sorry I'm rambling. What I'm trying to say in a rather convoluted way is, simply, thank you Mr. Nichols. Adult themes, conceived and performed by adult artists. I hope it makes zillions of dollars so we can have more of it. Jude Law is a Peter O'Toole without the steroids, Julia Roberts a Jeanne Moreau with an American passport, Clive Owen is a child of John Garfield and Peter Finch and Natalie Portman a Jean Peters with a college degree. I saw the film twice in a row, I hadn't done that in years. Not since "Drugstore Cowboy", "Apartment Zero" and "Sex Lies and Videotape" The unfolding of the dark happens in front of our eyes and it feels chillingly familiar. Lies we tell each other with so much conviction with so much honesty. The only real thing is the pain and the loneliness. It doesn't sound like a very entertaining night out but believe me, it is. Go, see for yourself. You may have to confront something you didn't want to confront. That's part of the process call growing up. Who's afraid of that?