Closer

Directed: Mike Nichols
Written by: Patrick Marber
Starring: Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, and Clive Owen
2004

The seductively innocent Alice bounds naively down a busy London street when she is spotted from a far by the achingly hapless Daniel. Gazes are locked and thanks to cupid’s arrow, or rather a rogue London taxi cab, a tale of love unfolds. Julia Roberts’s mug graces the movie poster for Closer, but this film is a caustically modern analysis of love and no one gets out unscathed. No warm fuzzy cuddle moments here.

Dan falls for Alice but meets Anna, Anna is with Larry, Dan and Anna sleep together, Alice finds out, Alice sleeps with Larry out of revenge and so the “romance” begins.

Alice is played by the perennial luminous Natalie Portman who brings to the role the charms of a young girl but the innate knowingness of a woman loved many times over. Dan, the hapless writer played with reserve and against type by the normally cinematically charming Jude Law, rescues Alice literally off the street and only when his valor subsides and their relationship has become stale his week constitution allows him to be so easily charmed by Anna, a photographer hired to shoot his book jacket photo. Anna is played with perfection by the normally gregarious Julia Roberts whom uses her wounded bird eye flutter coy smile charms to attract the alpha-male Larry, a star making performance by Clive Owen. Larry is possessive and animalistically male whom like Dan, saves the wounded birds, but very much likes them caged.

You’ve this film before: a tale of over-sexed, over-paid white professionals behaving badly in chic urban settings (Your Friends and Neighbors, Happiness, Magnolia), but this version stands out. The sexually carnivorous characters are all chasing the same goal - love or whatever it is that them fundamentally human. Love is ownership, battle and possession. It’s that allusive ‘connection’ they hunger for with a sense of entitlement. Mike Nichols, a director never shy to analyze modern love, ” Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me”, creates a compelling intimate space in which the characters continue to fail at intimacy themselves. Closer is based on the award-winning play by Patrick Marber and the pairing of Nichols, one familiar with
the adaptation of theatrical works to film (Angels in America, Wit), works perfectly to shed the static nature that usually finds cerebral plays when observed through a camera lens. With Marber’s scalpel sharp words, the strong cast and direction, there is a lyrical feel to this bittersweet love song.

Closer is by no means a recipe for modern relationships. Nor is it a cautionary tale of love. Instead, after the post coital consequences, it’s a raw and rough essay on what it means to crave, chase, possess love. The film ends with an echo of
the opening scene, the tale of romance begins again. We’ve come no Closer to understanding the game yet are all still so willing to play.