Customer Reviews

Closer

5 star:		(137)
4 star:		(103)
3 star:		(66)
2 star:		(48)
1 star:		(93)

 

 

This movie is RAW. If you want a feel good, bubble gum and lollipops type of movie, this is not for you.

This is one of the BEST character studies I have seen in a long time. It's ugly, it's raw, but it's REAL and that could be why some felt so ill at ease. To like this movie is to accept that people really are this selfish and ugly-hearted. This could very well happen and that's what turns your stomach.

By far, Clive Owen owns this movie! You are disgusted by him from beginning to end, but find yourself rooting for him on several occasions, then mad at yourself that you are doing so. But then when you look at the alternative for Anna (Julia Roberts) in Dan (Jude Law), you allow yourself the moral misstep. Dan is quietly selfish and insecure. You realize early on there's an invisible bar that he's set that no one can meet or sustain.

At the end of this movie, you'll ask yourself (in regards to family, friends, and intimate relationships) are you the one setting the unrealistic bar, or are you the one trying to meet one? Are you being yourself while also allowing others to be who they are.

"Alice" was played BRILLIANTLY by Natalie Portman. She had the right balance of tough chick and little-girl-lost. You clearly understood she was someone who wanted to be loved and accepted "as is" flawed and all. Doesn't everyone? She was the only innocent one, so to speak, in the entire quadrangle. She gave her body at the end masking her rejection and hurt. We all know someone whose done this or continues to do this. Although clearly misguided, Alice is the only one who didn't maliciously or selfishly hurt someone she claimed to love.

What makes Larry so remarkable is that he understood they were all flawed INCLUDING HIMSELF, but unlike Dan, accepted it. He knew Anna was a depressive. She didn't have to stay "up" and perfect for him. Larry allowed her to have her blue funks because he knew exactly what made her function comfortably. He was quite content in lifting and supporting her in her art of "photographing sad people beautifully" as Alice said, hitting the Anna nail right on the head. Anna was beautiful to the world, but was sad upon closer inspection. Dan never even realized her condition because it was all about him. Larry understood 'you are what you are,' anything better than that was a great moment. Because he understood this, he knew how to manipulate and orchestrate them all into ultimately getting what he wanted. Dan never got "it" in regard to his relationships because again, it was about him and distracting from his own securities. He had lived and supposedly loved Anna, but didn't really know her - same for "Alice." Any revelations as to who they really were, came from outside sources.

Alice told Larry hidden truths about herself because he was totally open with her - nothing hidden which in turn made her comfortable enough to talk.

Julia gave a great understated performance. She wasn't overly emotional, she didn't rely on her sexuality, she simply existed from moment-to-moment as a depressive does.

I challenge anyone who hated the ugliness of this movie to rewatch it with new eyes.

GREAT-GREAT film!

"Closer" is a handbook about how not to act in a relationship. It is about deception in all its various permutations: lying, cheating, pretending to love someone, pretending not to love someone.
"Closer" is about anything other then actually being close. In fact "Closer" is about staying as far away emotionally from people as you can: playing games with each other, taunting each other with frank descriptions of intimate encounters and instigating brutal arguments in which the need to hurt and cut as deeply as possible is paramount.
The four involved are: Alice (Natalie Portman), Dan (Jude Law), Anna (Julia Roberts) and Larry (Clive Owen)
Adapted from Patrick Marber's play of the same name, "Closer" several times retains the artificiality of a stage play. Movies are naturalistic, the Stage is artificial and at times the screenplay and Mike Nichols direction leads the actors down the wrong path artistically: for example Julia Roberts, the warmest of screen actresses actually comes off arch and stilted saying some of her lines.
But about midway through, things even out and Marber and Nichols get down to telling their story in movie terms. It's interesting to note that many scenes here remind me of Nichols's first film, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" in their eagerness to go for the throat.
One outstanding scene between Anna and Larry has them going at each other like wounded, feral animals. I can't think of another recent film scene that packs such an emotional wallop. One that makes you wince because, by this point you know the characters well, they use words to slice each other up like surgeons performing heart surgery.
Law and Roberts play difficult characters to like much less love, which is probably what appealed to both of these actors on paper. But Anna and Dan are both emotional wrecks stuck out in a sea of diffidence and indecision and everyone around them is equally coflicted and emotionally closed. But, beautiful failures though they made be, Anna and Dan are nonetheless at the epicenter of this foursome. At times, Law and Roberts are effective and at others not so much.
Clive Owen is the real revelation here as Larry: a Dermatologist addicted to Computer Chat Rooms, from more earthy, humble beginnings than Anna and Dan...but very proud of his accomplishments. Owen plays him rough but sincere and when he tells Anna that he doesn't lie...you believe him.
Natalie Portman comes off best I think as 24-year-old Alice, who meets Dan in a classic "cute meet" manner: she is hit by a car and he helps her to the hospital. Portman, who has played Anne Frank on the stage and has less movie time than any of the other principals, plays Alice as if it is the last role she will ever play: she's direct, she's touching, she's sexy.
There is definitely something chilling and icy about the world that Nichols and Marber create in "Closer." Tread lightly here, keep your feelings to yourself and don't get involved, you just might survive a visit intact.

"Closer" is a heavyweight breathtaking drama that rivets the viewer's attention. The characters are not entirely likable, although each is eminently watchable. Director Mike Nichols won the Oscar for Best Director for "The Graduate" in 1967 and has been nominated 3 other times for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966), "Silkwood" (1983), & "Working Girl" (1988). Along with films like "Primary Colors" and the TV mini-series "Angels in America," he has an unparalleled ear for dialogue. No, it's not particularly pleasant. No, these are not the people your pastor hopes you will be. But each of these characters represent needs and desires that are shared by most people and are as confused by them as are many. Patrick Marber's screenplay adaptation of his stage drama is heart-wrenchingly truthful.

Of the four strong performances here, the most revelatory for me was Julia Roberts' portrayal of American photographer Anna living in London. She is selfish but has a conscience. She takes what she wants, but tries not to admit to it. In the scene with Larry where she breaks up her marriage, it is some of the best screen time of her career. When Larry grills her on the details of her sexual relationship with Dan, her zinger about the taste of his semen, "It's like yours only sweeter" is like a bullet shot from a gun. It recalls the Elizabeth Taylor line in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," "You can take it; you married me for it." It is utterly fearless and brilliant. What a raw amazing performance!

As Dan, Jude Law turns is an edgy self-effacing performance that adds to his reputation as one of the great young actors. His scenes with Natalie Portman are enhanced by their similar pairing in "Cold Mountain." On camera, Law is magnetic. As Dan, the writer of the newspaper obituary column, he turns the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Clive Owen is amazing as the strong less-than-sensitive type. His internet sex dialogues with Jude Law's Dan posing as Anna on the computer are as intense as they are manipulated. When he sits in the aquarium with Anna and with tremendous embarrassment learns the truth, he admits, "He certainly can write!" In the scene with Julia Roberts he bellows "I'm a caveman." It seems to typify the heart of "Closer," investigating these very primal sexual urges we have and how they interweave with the emotional attachments we call "love." Owen was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for this role and won the Golden Globe Award.

As Alice, Natalie Portman turns in an amazing performance. Her character seems somewhat beyond reach, but she works the territory masterfully, exploring each need and nuance as if it were a beautiful discovery. Portman was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar and also won the Golden Globe Award.

Damien Rice's song "The Blower's Daughter" is an interesting DVD extra with that riveting chorus, "Can't take my eyes off of you." It's the perfect love song for this film, part pure love and part compulsive addiction. Mike Nichols has worked with an excellent cast and polished this dialogue to perfection. The rhythms build and twist and the lovers attract, repel, trust and betray. It does not so much build to an inevitable conclusion so much as it feels like we've followed the characters through a very intense period of life. This is a film that will be watched and discussed for decades. Bravo!

"Closer" is vulgar, depressing, bizarre and brutally honest.

I loved every minute of it.

That may seem an unfair summary of this film but - basically - that's all it ends up being. For all its witty sound and prurient fury about honesty and deception, love and hate, pleasure and pain, it essentially signifies nothing. All the players end back up at square one having learned absolutely nothing apart from trusting no one (although they never really did that to begin with).

None of the characters even approach being sympathetic. Law's writer is an egotistical, controlling stalker. Owen's doctor is a crude, arrogant sadist. Roberts' photographer is a masochistic depressive with a theoretical conscience but no judgment whatsover. Portman's stripper is clingy yet militantly aloof. And all of them are casual liars who tell the truth only when it will either do maximum emotional damage to the hearer or won't be believed due to their track record.

Sex is used by these people not only as a weapon but as a torture device and verbal bludgeon. Every time there's an infidelity, the offendee launches into a loud, graphic verbal description of all the imagined acts, demanding the most brutal details in the coarsest possible terms until the offender is nothing but a blubbering pulp.

In fact, I think sex is referred to as "sex" only once or twice in the whole film. The rest of the time it's called by it's most vulgar names. No one ever simply has sex, makes love, sleeps with, or even screws with someone else. It's always F, F, F, F, F (repeat 150 times) no matter the emotional or societal context. Maybe some people talk like this but I was in the Navy and I never even heard sailors be so obsessive about calling it that and nothing else.

Which brings me to the unintentional message of this supposed monument to "realism." One comes away from "Closer" with a suspicion that it is a stark portrait of the way many people in the show business bubble go about love and marriage. They seem (like teenagers almost) passionately devoted to the dramatic sturm und drang of relationships - rather than to their mates. Lots of shock and awe but no real commitment.

Do I like anything about this movie? Admittedly, yes.

As noted above, Marber's writing can be witty and just plain artful - stylistically anyway. The decision to retain the theatrical progression of the story - a series of vignettes featuring the conversational turning points rather than the acts that cause them - is an iffy proposition but is at least refreshing. Many were perturbed that the skipping of large tracts of time is handled in passing mentions rather than titles on the screen but it certainly keeps you focused on the dialogue!

There are also fleeting moments of casual dishonesty among the characters that made me flinch in self-recognition.

The acting in "Closer" is not only top-notch but occasionally brilliant. This is easily some of the best work you'll see all year. Making these characters anything other than caricatures took some chops, let me tell you. Even though they are - with the exception of Clive Owen - overexposed faces, they do an admirable job of suspending disbelief. Owen certainly deserves this day in the American sun. And Natalie Portman continues to improve exponentially. She chews this role up and spits it in your face. Her Golden Globe nomination may be arguable but it's certainly understandable.

If the critics are saying, "why can't there be a hundred movies like this?" they must be referring to the unflinching honesty in Closer. But don't confuse honesty with truth. It's as if the writer designed a love story where the characters were chronically unfaithful but they didn't lie about it. What if they were terrific infidels but honest about it? Closer is one possible result.

Meet Larry (Clive Owen), the sexaholic dermatologist; Anna (Julia Roberts), the American photographer living in London; Alice (Natalie Portman) the stripper from New York on an adventure; and Dan (Jude Law), a "failed novelist" by his own admission. See Larry, Anna, Alice, and Dan have lots of hot, guilt-based, retributive sex in various couplings in London. In particular, see Anna, poor Anna, have both Dan and Larry in a post-modern dual for her love and sexual favors. Thing is, it seems that sex with these women is simply a weapon Larry and Dan use to torment, punish, and rip on one another. Shall we go to the beginning of the story to find the roots of this libidinous grudge match? Beats me. Dan and Larry are constantly competing in the bedroom.

It's dirty and blunt. Never have I seen a movie where there's so much infidelity going on and so much blatant honesty about it. Larry asked, "did you f* him? Where? When? Did you enjoy it? Is he better than me?" Larry and Dan are constantly trying to get the sordid details from Anna and Alice about their affairs with Larry and Dan. Would people who love one another carry on this way, Especially if they were going to fess up about it?

These characters are not simple and their motives are not always clear (if ever). The characters have an adult quality to them, perhaps because they all recognize their need for love and attachment and through all their infidelities, they return for a connection that seems more desperately emotional than sexual. Jude Law is perfect casting in his role as is Owen in his; Law has the physical and emotional vulnerability for his puny character, just as Owen has the brooding swarthiness to complement Larry's darkness.

Closer is excellent trash about 4 confused adults hankering for love and connection and using sex to get that love. It's like excellent chocolate: excellent, but junk food nevertheless. These people don't flinch at their defects; in fact, they seem to embrace them and they hold their own personal insanities very close indeed. What are the chances of 4 people connecting with one another long enough to play these games for several years with the net result being the same as when the whole thing started?

I highly recommend Closer. Go with friends. You'll want to spend time afterward discussing the movie over coffee.

While I was watching this movie, I was constantly reminded of We Don't Live Here Anymore(Mark Ruffallo, Laura Dern, Naomi Watts, and Peter Kruse) that came out earlier this year. It's also a movie about 2 couples dealing with infidelity. I must say I enjoyed We Don't Live Anymore only because Laura Dern delivered another "career best" performance. Closer is better story, direction is fine, and the all star cast is superb, especially the never been better Natalie Portman playing a striper. She's gone beyond her other good works including Anywhere But Here and Where The Heart Is.
Alice(Portman) met Dan(Jude Law) on the street of London when she got hit by a car, and they instantly became an "item". Dan has a thing for Anna(Julia Roberts), a photograper who likes to shoot strangers at the London Aquarium. She rejects Dan, because he's already with Alice. He uses her name and e-chat with a cyber sex freak/doctor named Larry(Clive Owen), and set up a date with him at the aquarium. Anna happens to be there when the horny doctor showed up. It was actually Anna's birthday, and depite the fact that she knew it was Dan who set the date up, she instantly clicked with Larry, and they also became an "item".
Time goes by, and passion fades, one member of the couples falls out of love. Anna secretly screw around with Dan after getting married with Larry. Dan decided to dump Alice, because she's not good enough or not woman enough to stimulate him. Alice was devastated and took off. Anna eventually had to tell Larry her secret, because she couldn't stay with him anymore. Larry agreed to get divorced if she would let him "indulge" her body one more time.
Larry accidently ran into Alice in the strip joint and he paid her lots of money to have her strip for him and wanted to take her home and love her...
Upon knowing that Anna had slept with Larry again, Dan was furious and wanted to dump her, despite the fact that she love him more than Larry. Anyways, who will stay with whom at the end, I will not spoil it for you.
The overexposed Jude Law's character is the least likeable in this film, and somehow his performance is not as convincing like the way Portman(Alice) thinks of his love for her. Maybe it's the immaturity and insecurity of his role that makes me feel that way.
Clive Owen is pretty good, even though he has less screen time. He's more likeable compared to Law, because he's character is more realistic and honest.
This is probably Julia Robert's most serious role since Erin Brockovich. Unfortunately, her character lacked the heart and depth that was in Portman's role.
Natalie Portman gives the best performance in this movie and it's very likely going for an Oscar in the best supporting actress cateogory. She's very vulnerable and convincing, and the most likeable character in this movie. She gave her all and ultimately stole the movie from Julia Roberts.

"Closer" is a film about four people and the role that truth (or different kinds of truth) plays in their relationships as they try to get closer to themselves and to each other. The mixed reaction from viewers is because while "Closer" is a nicely packaged film and a fast-paced intelligent screenplay; the four main characters are "extremes" or at least extreme examples of the behaviors at the allegorical core of the film. These "expressionistically" drawn characters offend and disappoint the viewer segment expecting realistic and sympathetic portrayals (insert "characters with whom they can identify" here).

But they are extreme because they are intended to illustrate (in obvious ways) certain subtle elements of our romantic relationships. The two male characters, Dan (Jude Law) and Larry (Clive Owen), are products of and participants in the most fundamental Darwinian courtship process. Despite making a pretense of having evolved from the competitive courtship of male primates, they are still driven more by the need to win and secure a trophy than by a quest to love. Likewise Anna, the older female (Julia Roberts), is attracted by the male demonstrations of dominance, both the physical bluster of strength and the mental head games intended to manipulate her emotions. Accordingly her behavior encourages these demonstrations by the males.

Contrasted with these three is the younger female (Natalie Portman) who seeks a man who can transcend primitive drives, loving her and allowing her to love him.

Into this mix writer Patrick Marber inserts the truth factor in an ironic way. Portman's character places little value on words, adopting a false name at the beginning of the film. That she is superficially living a lie is ironic because she is the only one of the four who does not lie about their true feelings or engage in self-deception. Her transparency and detached self-awareness is symbolized by her job as a stripper.

The other three torture themselves and each other with superficial truths while engaging in compulsive deception about their actions and actual feelings, to each other and to themselves. Their duplicity is symbolized by their occupations. Dan is an obit writer, skilled in the use of euphemisms to disguise the unflattering characteristics of the deceased. Anna is a photographer, skilled in freezing a single moment in time uncharacteristic of the actual subject she is representing. Larry is a dermatologist focused on the superficial surface that one publicly presents.

The key exchange occurs early in the film as Alice and Dan discuss how essential euphemisms are in his job:

Alice: What would my euphemism be? Dan: She was... disarming. Alice: That's not a euphemism. Dan: Yes, it is.

Alice's up-front and open behavior causes him to let down his guard and feel a higher level of emotion, but his need to make new conquests and to test his attractiveness soon reasserts itself. She is willing to forgive this until finally convinced that he cannot transcend something so much a part of his basic nature. With this realization she falls out of love.

"Closer" is much like "XX/XY" in its exploration of the mysteries of male discontent although it is philosophically deeper and much better written. Mark Ruffalo plays Coles (the Dan character in that film), but Law's portrayal is more convincing because he does not have to alternate between rebel and wimp, something that Ruffalo could not quite pull off.

All four performances are solid although Roberts is given very little with which to work. Portman is especially good. The problem with "Closer" is that its symbolic message is not getting through to most viewers (at least it would appear so from the many clueless reviews and comments) who try to relate to it on a literal level. But if you like abstract tales deceptively showcased in a realistic package you should really enjoy this fine film.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Have you ever seen a human heart?" asks a character in "Closer," the new film by Mike Nichols. "It looks like a fist wrapped in blood."

That's a pretty good description for "Closer," too, except it doesn't look like a fist wrapped in blood, it feels like one -- and it's reaching out to pummel you with the raw "truth" about men and women, love and sex.

Prepare yourself. This is one of those movies that critics invariably describe as "brutally honest," one of those movies that is determined to peel back the mask of Hollywood's romantic lies and show that deep down, people are cruel, love is a sham, and the world is a cold, hard place. Oh, yeah: And the only honest women in this world are strippers and whores. Don't forget that one.

Nichols has explored this grim territory before, in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" in 1966 and "Carnal Knowledge" in 1971. But if the message was just as unpleasant back then, the timing at least made some sense: The women's movement and the sexual revolution had thrown the old ideas of love and sex into a shredder, and Nichols was hardly the only artist trying to make sense of the shards that were left.

But if those movies were of their time, "Closer," adapted from the hit play by British playwright Patrick Marber, feels like it exists in a vacuum. Why do the characters lie and cheat and hurt the very people they say they love?

Marber is too focused on getting at the cruel "truth" to be distracted by such trivial concerns as motivation. He gives his characters lots of smart, brittle dialogue, but he doesn't give them souls, or history, or anything else that would make them more than caricatured types.

Without such specificity -- and in art, the specific is what leads us to the universal -- we're left with a pretty feeble answer to all that lying and hurt: It's simply human nature.

Marber also wants us to believe that true intimacy is impossible, especially in this modern world of sex, lies and computer hard drives. He hammers his point home with relentless references to strangers. The movie's first line, "Hello, stranger," is just the beginning. A photography show that is the setting of a crucial scene is called -- way too symbolically -- "Strangers," and when a character asks the photographer, "Am I a stranger?" her cutting answer is, "You're a job."

The format is basically a sexual roundelay among four strangers. In London, a writer, Dan (Jude Law), meets and falls for an American girl, Alice (Natalie Portman), when she's hit by a cab. She used to be a stripper, and Dan writes a novel based on her life. When he goes to have his book-jacket photo taken, he falls for the photographer, Anna (Julia Roberts).

Anna spurns him -- she won't let him betray Alice -- and a year or so later he plays a mean practical joke on her. He sets her up, anonymously through a cyber-sex Web site, with a doctor, Larry (Clive Owen).

Anna and Larry hit it off at that rendezvous and get married, and when Dan finds out, he dumps Alice and tries to take Anna away from Larry. Larry responds like an animal whose fresh prey has been stolen.

Each scene takes place at either the beginning or the end of the affair in question. It's a stagy gimmick -- almost as arch and mannered as the theatrical dialogue -- and it works against the film. By cutting out the middle and focusing only on the shallow flirtations of the beginnings and the betrayals of the ends, Marber further alienates us from the characters, who remain distant and unlikable.

The smashing cast certainly tries to bring these thin characters to life, and it's to their credit that the movie is as sleek and nastily entertaining as it is, despite the material.

Roberts works hard against her natural vivacity to play a depressed, guilt-ridden woman torn between two men. She's credible in the role, but it feels like Nichols drained her life-force away, and after an hour of watching her look haunted and hollow you think, "What exactly is the point of making Julia Roberts a depressive?" It's like making Audrey Hepburn drab.

Law also is stripped of his charm. Dan is written as a weak conniver who will lie to get anything, and the role reduces him to jealous sniveling and begging.

Portman fares a lot better in a role for which she's perfectly suited. Her Alice brings to mind the lines in the Bob Dylan song, "Just Like a Woman": "She makes love just like a woman, yes she does, and she aches just like a woman, but she breaks just like a little girl."

As impressive as these three performances are, though, the breakout star is Owen, who tears into the part of the competitive, vulgar, scheming Larry with a primitive brio. Larry is the one who says the heart is like a fist, and when he says it, he looks as if he could eat that heart whole and still beating. If only the movie had one available.

First of all, let me say that I am a huge fan of Patrick Marber's play "Closer." I think it is one of the most honest and brutal pieces ever written about the pain we enter into when we fall in love. The movie, despite being written by Marber, falls far short of his play, taking away a lot of the darkness and complexity and replacing it with a new ending that doesn't do the rest of the film justice. "Closer" is well-directed by Mike Nichols, although the majority of the praise must be given to the four actors who hold the movie together: Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, and Natalie Portman.

"Closer" is about a quartet of strangers who meet in contemporary London, fall in love, and then destroy one another over the course of four years. Dan (Jude Law) meets the mysterious ex-stripper Alice (Natalie Portman) on the street and saves her from being killed by a speeding car. Dan is entranced by Alice, and the two begin a relationship. He writes a book based on her life, and is photographed by Anna (Julia Roberts). Dan becomes obsessed with Anna, and wants to be with her at all costs. Meanwhile, as a result of a wickedly funny chat room conversation, Dan causes Anna to meet Larry (Clive Owen). The two hit it off, and eventually get married.

What I have just described is only the beginning of "Closer." The four characters engage in a brutal game of musical beds, hurting one another not with lies, but by telling the truth. The film's most wrenching scene is when Dan tells Alice he has been sleeping with Anna, and Anna reveals to Larry that she's been unfaithful to him for a year. The dialogue between these people is physically painful to watch, because it is so ugly and so honest. If the rest of the movie could have been as bracing, "Closer" would have been a masterpiece. As it is, the play's sharp edges have been dulled to create a film with much less bite.

The best part of "Closer" is the acting. Jude Law does an excellent job of showing us the wounded little boy behind Dan's sharp facade, crying like a baby when he can't have what he wants most. Julia Roberts is miscast as Anna, a role which was originally supposed to be played by Cate Blanchett. This is the hardest acting job Roberts has ever been given, and it is out of her range. However, Roberts turns in a very good performance, one of her best, even if it falls short of what it could have been. Clive Owen, who is mostly unknown to American audiences, is a nice surprise as Larry, at turns brokenhearted and coldhearted. The most devastating performance is given by Natalie Portman, who inhabits the damaged Alice so well that we forget what actress we're watching. Portman's Alice can be a burning beacon of sexuality when she wants to be, but underneath that is a frightened, lonely little girl, which makes us pity her. Although Marber's screenplay robs her of some of her original complexity, Natalie Portman turns in a brave and exciting performance, one that should cement her as one of the most promising actresses of her generation.

I do think "Closer" is worth seeing. If you are unfamiliar with the play on which it is based, you will enjoy it more than I did. It boasts some incredible acting and skilled direction by the great Mike Nichols. It's not an easy film to watch or an easy play to read. Because it refutes the notion that love is something beautiful and cuddly, that it is in fact, hard and painful, and sometimes glorious. As Larry says, "Have you ever seen a human heart? It looks like a fist, wrapped in blood."