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If ever there was a film that made you hate the idea of romance, it’s Closer. I feel like finding Cupid right now and beating the sh*t out of him. Mike Nichols is style over substance defined, so it’s no surprise that his latest effort looks quite good. Set in London, it uses the city’s landscape only sparingly, but the veteran filmmaker makes every standard internal set feel somehow English, a plus for us viewers since we can bask in the comfort that we don’t live on the same continent as these arrogant bastards. Dan (Jude Law, currently pulling an Agent Smith on Hollywood thespians) is exceedingly stupid, displayed for us in vivid detail when he decides Natalie Portman (Alice) is not a good enough woman for him. The nerve. Instead he’s got his eyes on Anna (Julia Roberts,) but accidentally sets her up with Larry (Clive Owen,) who meets his beau in one of the oddest meet cutes in film history. As attractive and semi-wealthy as they and their partners are, none of these a**holes are happy for a moment, swapping sex partners back and forth with no regard for anyone’s feelings but their own: •Anna seems innocent on the surface, but it’s a mask; she spends her life photographing strangers, using her camera to find what’s hidden beneath. Thus she’s become an expert at protecting her true nature from others. •Dan doesn’t even try, making a grand effort to be described by others as an “untrustworthy cad;” during his first meeting with Anna, a professional photo shoot, he betrays current girlfriend Alice and demands to see Anna again, forcing her to become involved in another’s relationship. He isn’t even polite enough to deny he’s involved, or to claim that the coupling is in trouble, thereby at least saving Anna the grief of being the other woman. (Not that she’d really care.) •Alice’s entire life is a lie, jumping from mate to mate until she “stops loving them,” a polite way to say she gets bored easily. The fact that she’s a stripper isn’t a character flaw but a flashing neon sign screaming, “I use sex to take what I want from men, whether that be pleasure or money. Or both.” But that’s obvious. •Larry spends the first act of the film gliding by, a proper boyfriend and eventually husband, the happy doctor who would never, ever stray, at least not on purpose. Anna’s revelation of infidelity sends him off the deep end, though, and we discover that he’s as hateful and ill mannered as the rest of the lot, and certainly a bit more perverted. Or is he just the voice of reason, saying what’s on everybody else’s mind that dares not escape from their well-traveled lips? There is no gray area: these are an immoral folk who have no idea what love actually is. Alice uses it as a synonym for comfort and shelter. Anna, with a face as mellow and trustworthy as Julia Roberts can muster, just wants sex. Dan wants what he can’t have; he’s an average fellow looking to conquer the next great mountain. Only Larry really wants love, ironically finding it through a quest for brief, fleeting pleasure, and the relationship results in his conversion by the teeming mass of intertwining body parts and loose morals that his three co-stars comprise. Nichols’s film, adapted by Patrick Marber from his own stageplay, saves itself by sharing our feelings about these people. Never does the film seem to feel any sympathy for its collection of antagonists, instead merely offering them up for our observation and subsequent judgment. This isn’t “Bastardpiece Theatre,” though, with characters sporting red horns and pitchforks. Everyone here, especially Anna, comes off at times as charming and affectionate; Portman in particular spends her first scene in the film reminding us of her charming character from this year’s second best film, Garden State. This adds up to something by the end of the second act, where you can start to sit back, enjoy the vitriol (especially from Clive Owen,) and analyze these pathetic souls long enough to really enjoy the film. Admittedly, you can briefly feel sorry for this group, who don’t hurt or offend out of spite or a desire to cause pain as much as they just plain don’t realize what they’re doing. No excuses, though. The youngest of the lot is Alice at twenty-four, and if she’s done enough to have a book written about her life, then she should know better. So should the rest. email this review to a friend
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