Movie: Closer
Starring, Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, Clive Owen
Directed by Mike Nichols; Written by Patrick Marber (Columbia)
Reviewed by Rusty Pipes

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Closer is a story of love between four people, sort of a double triangle really. In London, Alice, (Natalie Portman) an American who forgets that English traffic comes from the opposite direction, gets into a traffic mishap. She is taken to the hospital by an aspiring writer, Dan (Jude Law). They fall in love, and Dan writes a book that uses much of Alice's experience as a stripper. While preparing to release the book, he falls for Anna, (Julia Roberts) the photographer hired to do his publicity stills. Dan realizes that he can't have Anna while still with Alice so while idly masquerading as a woman in an internet chat room, he sets up a doctor, Larry, (Clive Owen, last seen in Roman drag as King Arthur) to meet Anna.

Got all that so far? Good, because that's just the beginning of a shifting set of liaisons and breakups between the four. The rest of the movie chronicles their key conversations and arguments over several years. All four of these people are constantly deciding the grass is greener in the other relationship. They are tripping over themselves to get away from each other, only to come crawling back again. The only question to keep you interested is which partner will each one end up with?

Patrick Marber's script started out as a play he wrote, which you can see in the way that most scenes are conversations between two or three of the main characters. Veteran director Mike Nichols handles his story well and draws fine performances out of the excellent cast, but it stops short of being truly revealing about the human condition.

What are we supposed to learn from Closer? That if you keep picking at a relationship it will never heal? Believe me, if I were to find myself with committed love from any babe like Natalie Portman or Julia Roberts, I wouldn't be looking around anymore. I guess that's the main problem here-- all four of these people are just a little too beautiful to be believable.

The Skinny:
Did I enjoy the movie? It was thought provoking and literate, just don't ask me to go to a party with such self-centered people.
Would I go to see it again? The relationship was too painful to go through another breakup again.

© 2005 - Rusty Pipes