| Reviewer Roundup |
| 1. |
 | Dustin Putman |
| review follows |
|   |
| 2. |
| Steve Rhodes |
| read the review |
| |
|
Review by Dustin Putman
2½ stars out of 4
"Closer," directed with a surgical workmanlike quality by Mike Nichols
(2000's "What Planet Are You From?"), is a motion picture of starts
and stops—not involving the pacing, which is slow but always absorbing,
but within the horribly dysfunctional relationships between its four
characters. Supporting roles are defunct, the film taking place in
a self-contained bubble in which other people live, but, for all intents
and purposes, do not exist outside of being window dressing. What
is left are these four souls—obituary writer Dan (Jude Law), young
stripper Alice (Natalie Portman), photographer Anna (Julia Roberts),
and dermatologist Larry (Clive Owen)—who seemingly choose destruction
over happiness, meeting cute in sequences that would be right at home
in the romantic comedy genre before the movie switches to the end
of their romances when passion and emotional connection is gone. Their
behavior is inexcusable and, at times, downright maddening. In their
own way, however, and whether viewers are willing to admit it or now,
they begin to take on patterns and make very bad choices that resemble
one's we have all made—or, at least, considered—in our own past.
As the picture begins, Dan witnesses the self-described waif, Alice,
get hit by a car while crossing a busy London street. Taking her the
hospital to get treated for some scrapes and bruises, they begin to
talk and soon have fallen in love. Switch forward a year, Dan shares
a passionate kiss with stranger Anna, who has been chosen to photograph
him for his impending book release. They go no further than this,
but meet another year later at Anna's photography exhibit, where feelings
for each other are discovered to still be mutual. By this time, Anna
is in a serious relationship with Larry, whom Dan unknowingly brought
together through a thought-to-be-harmless sex chat deception where
he posed as Anna. As couples break up in exchange for new relationships
that, they discover, offer no more satisfaction than the one's they
were already in, Alice eventually has a sexual encounter with the
rejected Larry at a strip club she works at.
Written by Patrick Marber (based on his play), "Closer" is destined
to elicit deep conversations for anyone who sees it. It is not an
easy film to embrace, despite grabbing the viewer's attention from
the beginning and refusing to let go, because it features four characters
who start off likable before becoming more despicable with each new
scene. They are all self-destructive, yes, but they are also hypocrites
in the biggest sense, willing to have affairs and give in to temptations
even as they resent their partners who all, at some point, do they
very same thing. Black as coal and uncompromisingly grim, "Closer"
is an arresting drama in the vein of filmmaker Neil LaBute's oeuvre
(1998's "Your Friends & Neighbors," 2003's "The Shape of Things")
that just so happens to involve an insufferable lot who, if they existed
in your real life, you would walk on the opposite side of the street
to avoid. In certain actions, they, indeed, symbolize the darker side
of common human nature. By the end, they have sunken to an even lower
level that is difficult to apprehend, let alone understand.
The performances, free of vanity, and the juicy, at times sexually
explicit, dialogue they throw off each other are the key reasons why
"Closer" remains a film worth noting. The actors are near the top
of their game as they tackle difficult characters to wrap around,
with Julia Roberts (2003's "Mona Lisa Smile") probably surprising
the most with the amount of unaffected depth she brings to Anna through
her facial expressions and line deliveries. Having such a huge star
in a film outside of the mainstream realm always runs the risk of
calling attention to itself, but Roberts so magnificently embodies
the whole of Anna that she avoids this trap. As Alice, who seems at
the onset to be the most virtuous of the leads before late developments
prove this to might not be the case, Natalie Portman delivers her
second stunning, nuanced performance of the year, following "Garden
State." At only 23, Portman is able to bring a lived-in soulfulness
to Alice that someone twice her age would likely have trouble equaling.
As male counterparts Larry and Dan, Clive Owen (2002's "The Bourne
Identity") and Jude Law (2004's "Alfie") offer intensely good turns
of their own. If there is a debit, it is that Law's recent overexposure—by
the end of the year, he will have appeared in six high-profile movies
in a four-month span—has grown tiresome. No fault of Law's, but his
undeniably pretty face has begun to wear out its welcome.
Each sequence in "Closer" is something of a war of words that make
up individual short features, all of them provocative and gripping.
There are genuinely sweet moments early on, including the day Dan
and Alice share together as they walk around the city following her
accident, and another scene in which Anna and Larry awkwardly meet
by chance at an aquarium and share an almost instant bond. For the
most part, though, the film's tone is somber and downright brutal,
as in the confrontation between Larry and Anna when she tells him
she's leaving him for Dan, their damaging honesty cutting each other
like knives. Another sequence between Larry and Alice in the backroom
of the strip club is a bravura ten minutes of sharply written and
acted precision, as they dance around the real subjects at hand and
tempt each other as a respite to their failed relationships with Anna and Dan.
If "Closer" is superb in sections, it all adds up to much less as
a whole. By focusing solely on the characters' key encounters with
each other—in order, Dan and Alice, Dan and Anna, Anna and Alice,
Anna and Larry, Alice and Larry, and Larry and Dan—director Mike Nichols
has neglected to delve into who these people truly are and why they
do what they do. Perhaps his point is that there is no point to what
Dan, Alice, Anna, and Larry do—they are the biggest victims of their
own indiscretions—but it makes for a slightly disconcerting cinematic
outcome. "Closer" doesn't offer much audience satisfaction because
they are placed in the character's terminally unsatisfied shoes, but
it does welcome, and even demand, conversation and post-screening
discussions. The film is an uncompromising experience, which proves
to be a simultaneous detriment and godsend to the finished product,
but the sumptuous performances and tantalizing dialogue make even
the most detestable of human behavior uncontrollably fascinating.
Copyright © 2004 Dustin Putman
|
