Review: "Closer" is almost there
Natalie O'Neill
- Page 1 of 1
12/14/04
As movie-goers, we reserve the right to be shameless voyeurs. The movie theater is one of the only places where we can watch unabashedly as beautiful people struggle with their beautiful conflicts.
Mike Nichols, who directed "The Graduate" in 1967, understands this and embraces it in his latest film, "Closer". Apart from setting up four of Hollywood's most attractive and talented actors for an erotic relationship swap, he creates a cast of characters who are quintessential voyeurs and exhibitionists. By adapting Patrick Marber's play, a London-set drama that comments on how couples push each other away, Nichols puts his own provocative spin on an already racy subject.
Dan (Jude Law), a failed novelist-turned obituary writer, is satisfied in his relationship with Alice, an emotionally needy stripper, until he meets Anna (Julia Roberts), a successful photographer. As Anna is introduced, we see that, following the thread of voyeurism, she is just the opposite of Alice-that she takes pictures of strangers, while Alice takes off her clothes for strangers. The plot thickens when sex-obsessed Larry (Clive Owen) enters the picture, marries Anna and prompts a circle of cheating between the couples.
While, at times, "Closer" feels more like a game of spin the bottle than it does a film that addresses serious emotion within relationships, the dialogue and the acting is what keeps the movie from becoming trite. It is stranely refreshing to see Robert's character use raunchy sexual language and to deliver lines that abandon the predictably wholesome role she has grown comfortable playing.
Through the dialogue, there is remarkable attention to detail and beauty through eccentricity (Alice tells Dan she fell for him because he cut off the crusts of his sandwich). Marber's writing is endearing, edgy, and delightfully offensive.
"Closer" is set apart from other films in a similar genre because, in the tradition of sex, lies, and cheating, the film leaves out one element: the lies. This puts an innovative spin on a subject that could easily move from taboo to cliché. Here, the couples are honest about their affairs, which is part of what fuels a territorial competition between the two men. In an ironic line that sums up all four characters' weaknesses, Dan tells Alice, "[I want] the truth. I am addicted to it, because without it we are animals."
At points the film strives to make a larger statement about the ways in which human beings push love away, but it comes across thematically vague. Characters search for intimacy through sex and for happiness through the unattainable, but the theme is lost somewhere between the romance and the raunch. The film does an excellent job getting the audience to think, but packs no punch in the end.
While "Closer" is smart and certainly entertaining, it's far from Nichols' best work.
As movie-goers, we reserve the right to be shameless voyeurs. The movie theater is one of the only places where we can watch unabashedly as beautiful people struggle with their beautiful conflicts.
Mike Nichols, who directed "The Graduate" in 1967, understands this and embraces it in his latest film, "Closer". Apart from setting up four of Hollywood's most attractive and talented actors for an erotic relationship swap, he creates a cast of characters who are quintessential voyeurs and exhibitionists. By adapting Patrick Marber's play, a London-set drama that comments on how couples push each other away, Nichols puts his own provocative spin on an already racy subject.
Dan (Jude Law), a failed novelist-turned obituary writer, is satisfied in his relationship with Alice, an emotionally needy stripper, until he meets Anna (Julia Roberts), a successful photographer. As Anna is introduced, we see that, following the thread of voyeurism, she is just the opposite of Alice-that she takes pictures of strangers, while Alice takes off her clothes for strangers. The plot thickens when sex-obsessed Larry (Clive Owen) enters the picture, marries Anna and prompts a circle of cheating between the couples.
While, at times, "Closer" feels more like a game of spin the bottle than it does a film that addresses serious emotion within relationships, the dialogue and the acting is what keeps the movie from becoming trite. It is stranely refreshing to see Robert's character use raunchy sexual language and to deliver lines that abandon the predictably wholesome role she has grown comfortable playing.
Through the dialogue, there is remarkable attention to detail and beauty through eccentricity (Alice tells Dan she fell for him because he cut off the crusts of his sandwich). Marber's writing is endearing, edgy, and delightfully offensive.
"Closer" is set apart from other films in a similar genre because, in the tradition of sex, lies, and cheating, the film leaves out one element: the lies. This puts an innovative spin on a subject that could easily move from taboo to cliché. Here, the couples are honest about their affairs, which is part of what fuels a territorial competition between the two men. In an ironic line that sums up all four characters' weaknesses, Dan tells Alice, "[I want] the truth. I am addicted to it, because without it we are animals."
At points the film strives to make a larger statement about the ways in which human beings push love away, but it comes across thematically vague. Characters search for intimacy through sex and for happiness through the unattainable, but the theme is lost somewhere between the romance and the raunch. The film does an excellent job getting the audience to think, but packs no punch in the end.
While "Closer" is smart and certainly entertaining, it's far from Nichols' best work.