Righty so time for another review and this one will be on the British/American film, Closer, which I will be looking at "closer" in this post (pardon the pun sorry!). And with that let's do the usual and give this dirty mucker a look... (OK its nowhere near as dirty as Wolf of Wall Street that would take some doing!).
So starting with the story, the film is set in London, and it starts with a young American woman named Alice Ayres (Natalie Portman) who while crossing a busy road is hit by a taxi. A passer by named Dan Woolf (Jude Law) who's attention was on Alice when she crossed, helps her into a taxi and takes her to the hospital where she is treated and then released. Dan then walks with Alice around Postman's park, a central park in London and he tells how he is an obituarist, who is aspiring to become a writer. Just before they part ways Dan asks Alice her name and they soon become a couple. A year later Dan and Alice are still together, and Dan has written a book about Alice's life and while he is being photographed to publicise the book, he flirts with an American photographer, Anna Cameron (Julia Roberts). Dan flirts with Anna and the two of them share a kiss, and Dan tries to persuade Anna to have an affair with him, despite telling her he and Alice are in a relationship. However Alice soon arrives and while she goes to the bathroom, she comes back not long after, having overhead Dan and Anna talk, with Dan having left, Alice becomes tearful as she reveals to Anna she heard them and angrily asks Anna to taker her picture, which she does, which shows a tear in her eye.
A year later, Dan while at home enters a Internet cybersex chat room where he chats to Larry Grey (Clive Owen) who is a British dermatologist. Dan who is still obssessed with Anna, pretends to be her and teases Larry into thinking he wants to have sex. Dan agrees to meet with Larry at the aquarium (where Anna frequently likes to go). Larry turns up at the aquarium and he unwittingly meets Anna and comes on to her but she soon get's that Dan set him up and tells Larry that he is the victim of a practical joke. Larry apologises to Anna and the two of them share a walk together where Anna tells him that its her birthday. Larry then buys Anna a balloon as a romantic gesture and the two of them soon become a couple and they refer to Dan as "Cupid" thereafter. Four months later at Anna's photo exhibition, Larry meets with Alice whom he recognises from the tearful picture that Anna took of her for the book. At this time Dan finally manages to persuade Anna to have an affair with him, even though during this time Anna and Larry get married. Dan soon tells Alice of the affair, leaving her devastated and heart broken, she leaves. Larry also after coming back from a business trip from America get's a confession from Anna that she is leaving him as well, after this Dan and Anna unite as a couple.
Afterwards Larry, heartbroken, wanders into a strip club where he finds Alice working as a stripper, he takes her for a private dance in a room, where he tells he knows her and they have met before, but Alice denies they have ever met. Larry also demands Alice to tell him her name but she says her name is "Jane Jones" and not Alice. Larry in their meeting expresses his anger and sadness over his break up with Alice and he also confesses his desire for her, but Alice turns him down. Not long after this Larry manages to convince Anna to meet up with him one final time, where Anna wants Larry to sign divorce papers. Larry agrees to but he requests that they have sex together one last time, after which he promises to leave her alone, and Anna agrees. However after this Dan soon finds out from Anna that she slept with Larry and he takes it badly and leaves her, leaving Anna to go back to Larry. Dan later meets up with Larry at Larry's surgery, where he pleads with him to let Anna come back to him, but Larry refuses and instead insists that he go to Alice, as he tells him that he found her working at a strip bar and she still loves Dan. Larry gives the address of the strip bar to Dan, but he admits to Dan just before he leaves the office that while he initally said he didn't have sex with her, that he lied and he did. Dan soon finds Alice working at the strip bar and they reunite, seemingly happy once again. However Dan's curiosity for the truth get's the better of him as he insists that Alice tell him what happened between her and Larry, as she initially denies that anything happened. However as Dan persists, Alice tells him the truth that she did sleep with Larry and she no longer loves him, Dan also admits that Larry told him as well, and even though Alice is surprised by this, it doesn't change her feelings as she tells him to get out, they argue and he slaps Alice. After the dissolve of their relationship Dan wanders around the park from earlier in the film as he learns a truth about Alice's identity, meanwhile Dan and Anna remain together in their unhappy marriage, and Alice heads back to the US.
Based on Patrick Marber's award winning play of the same name, Closer is an engrossing drama about four people who become entangled with one another in rather unhappy circumstances and the film is for the most part wondefully written and its both morose and witty (Marber also appeared on TV during the 90s on comedy shows such as The Day Today). And as a character piece, Closer really succeeds as the four characters are hardly angels, and while Dan and Anna appear to be the most morally questionable of the bunch, given they break up their own relationships to be together, Alice and Larry are not entirely innocent either. This is as Alice lies about her identity throughout the film and Larry also spitefully uses Alice to get even with Dan for causing his break up in the first place. And its the way in which their fates are woven together and the confrontations between them that make Closer a compelling film to watch and it remains a strong viewing experience given the raw emotions of the characters and the somewhat graphic language they use in the film (and yep there will be a fair few examples of that coming up for which I have to apologise!).
Which brings me onto the performances, and they are all largely excellent, starting with Jude Law who is really good in his role as Dan, an aspiring writer who falls for Alice, but later breaks her heart by having an affair with Anna. Law has plenty of good moments in the film as well some great dialogue. Jude's scenes with Natalie Portman are also good highlights as the two of them make a fairly nice couple onscreen. And in their first scene together Jude has some good lines where he tells Alice about how he writes as an obituarist and he uses euphemisms to describe the type of personality people who have died had, such as "He was a convivial fellow, that means he was an alcoholic" "He valued his privacy: he was gay!" and "He enjoyed his privacy - raging queen!". And as they are about to part ways on their first meeting, Dan says to Alice "Nice to meet you and remember in our country traffic always comes from the right". And his scene later where chats online with Larry is hilarious and teases him with some obscene sexual chat is also funny and uses such charming phrases as "I wank about strangers, and they form a cue and I attend to them like a cum hungry bitch" and "Sit on my face fuckboy!" and "I want to suck u senseless" and "All hail the Sultan of twat!". Jude also has a great scene where he confronts Larry at his office after he finds out that Larry slept with Anna, during which Dan breaks down in tears as he is forced to accept that his chance with Anna is over, and Larry instead tells Dan to go back to Alice. And just before he leaves Larry asks him if he's still "pissing about on the net" and Dan says "not lately" and Larry says "I wanted to kill you" and Dan replies "I thought you wanted to fuck me!" and Larry says "Now, don't get lippy". He also shares of strong scene with Natalie when Dan tells Alice that he is breaking up with her and he says "I hate doing this and hate hurting you" and Alice in tears asks why is he then and he says "Because I love her and I think I'd be happier with her. Deception is brutal I'm not pretending otherwise".
Clive Owen, who played the lead role of Dan in the play, is terrific in his role as Larry, the dermatologist and here he gives one of his best performances. Owen has some great highlights in the film and his first scene with Dan where they chat on the Internet in cybersex chat room is funny, where Larry furtively looks around the room in case anyone comes in. And when he meets Anna for the first time at the aquarium and he comes on to her and he says "Feel free to call me The Sultan!" and he then insists that he chatted to a woman online "She was a woman, I had a huge.... she wasn't was she???". And as the penny drops, Larry apologises afterwards and Anna tells him it was Dan and tells him about his book, which she laughingly says is called the aquarium and Larry outraged says "The prick! He's advertising!!". And in one of the film's best and most dramatic scenes Dan confronts Anna about her leaving him. And Owen has some great dialogue in the scene as well where Larry angrily insists that Anna tell him about her most recent sexual encounter with Dan. And as he presses Anna on the sex and she asks why its so important he yells "BECAUSE I'M A FUCKING CAVEMAN!!!". And he follows it up with "What does his come taste like??" and Anna says "It tastes like yours but sweeter!" he says "That's the spirit, thank you for your honesty. Now fuck off and die, you fucked up slag!". And in the scene where he meets with Alice in the strip bar and he has a private meeting with her, he pours out his soul to her, but at the same time he asks her some real blunt questions such as "What does you cunt taste like?" and Alice replies "Heaven!". And Larry also asks Alice in the scene "Do you desire me? Because I'm being pretty fucking honest about my feelings with you?" to which Alice says she doesn't and he despairs and yells to the camera in the ceiling "What have you got to do to get some intimacy around here?????!!". Another great scene is where Larry has a confrontation with Dan at his surgery, and as Dan walks in the room he says "I owe you an apology. I fell in love with her. It was not my intention to make you suffer" and Dan coldly replies "So where is the apology? Ya cunt!". And as they carry on arguing and Dan says "You think love is simple. You think the heart is like a diagram??" and Larry angrily gets up and storms over to him saying "Have you ever seen a human heart?! Its like a fist, wrapped in blood! Go fuck yourself! You writer! You liar!". And as Dan is about to leave after Larry tells him he did not have sex with Alice, he stops him and says "Dan, I lied to you. I did fuck Alice. Sorry to tell you, but I'm just not big enough to forgive you.... Buster!".
Natalie Portman is also excellent in her role as Alice, the beautfiul young American woman who arrives in London and falls in love with Dan, only to have him break her heart a couple of years later. Portman also shows Alice to be something of an ambiguous character, as on one hand as Alice she appears to be quite innocent, but in her role as a stripper, she appears far more tough and street wise. Portman's best moments comes in her scene where Dan breaks up with her and later when she breaks up with him. And in their last scene she promptly breaks up with Dan as she calmly says "I don't love you anymore. Goodbye." but as Dan tries to reason with their conversation becomes more heated and he asks her why she slept with and she says "Because I desired him!" and he pushes her again and she says "You weren't there!". Portman also has good scene with Owen when Alice and Dan meet at Anna's photo exhibition and Dan asks her what she thinks of the photos and she says "Its a lie. Its a bunch of sad strangers beautifully photographed, and all the assholes that appreciate art say its beautiful because that's what they wanna see. But the pictures make the world seem so beautiful, so... the exhibition is reassuring which is a lie, and everyone loves a bit fat lie". And during her scene with Dan in the strip club, she takes control of the proceedings very well, and Alice toys with Larry in the scene playfully and she tells him "Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off". And in one of her lighter moments, Portman also has an amusing scene where she talks to Dan at home while they get ready to go out and she says "So this man came into the cafe today and says "hey waitress, what are you waiting on?". So I go "I'm waiting for a man to come in here and fuck me sideways with a beautfiul line like that!" and Dan asks what did the man ask for and Alice says "He asked for a cup of tea with two sugars".
And lastly we have Julia Roberts who for me is the weak link in the cast here and while her performance is by no means bad, she just seems a bit miscast in the role. Roberts plays Anna in a very morose way which makes it difficult for an audience to connect or even understand her, even though that is maybe the point of her character, Roberts does fall somewhat flat at times in her performance. Nonetheless Roberts does have some good moments, such as her first scene where Anna photographs Dan and he comes on to her. And later when Larry first meets Anna at the aquarium and as he talks dirty to her, she says "I think you are the victim of a practical joke" and she laughs as tells Larry about Dan. Roberts also has some good lines, although not as many as her co-stars, such as in the scene where at her exhibition she tells off Larry for being somewhat smug and she says "You seem more like the cat that got the cream. Stop licking yourself" and Larry looks at her shocked and says "That's the nastiest thing you've ever said to me". And later in Roberts best scene where Anna rows with Larry and they have the following exchange:
Larry: You like his cock?
Anna: I love it!
Larry: You like him coming in your face?
Anna: Yes!
Larry: And what does it taste like?
Anna: It tastes like yours but sweeter!
(P.S. I must apologise for all this crude language, just remember its all Patrick Marber's fault!).
Finally moving on to the direction Mike Nichols does a fine job here with Closer, as he is no stranger to directing close intimate dramatic pieces, as he has done so before with the likes of films such as Carnal Knowledge (which starred Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel). Nichols also manages to keep the tightness in the film's more dramatic scenes and the film even in its slower scenes never really drags. The film's minimalist music score is also quite good by Suzanna Peric, which fits the film's rather morose tone very well.
As for Closer's flaws, well....it does have one or two. For starters while the script is largely very well written by Patrick Marber, some of the dialogue is a little bit cheesy as well, and has an almost Mills and Boone quality to in places. This is evident in the scene particularly where Dan finds out that Anna slept with Larry, and she says to him "Don't be mad. I love you. I see the love draining away from you!". And also in the scenes with Alice and Dan, where she first says to Dan "Why won't you let me love you??" before they go out to the exhibition together. And later in their last scene when Alice breaks up with Dan and she says "I would have loved you forever!". Even Dan has a rather cringing breakdown in front of Alice in the scene where they meet in strip club and he sobs and says "I love you! I love everything about you that hurts!". These moments while they don't ruin the film they do detract a little from the Marber's otherwise excellent screenplay. Another thing I didn't like about the film was Damien Rice's music, which makes you want to cringe and put in the ear plugs, as Rice's thin high pitched voice can be rather grating to listen to, and it feels a bit too gushy for my liking. But I guess that boils down to personal preference, but I personally don't like gushy lovey dovey music as I think its a lorra crap.
Anywayyyyy despite those niggles, Closer is still a very engrossing drama, which features some excellent performances and if you haven't checked it out, its worth giving it a go.
And so I will leave it there for the now and I'll be back soon with another review and next time it will be on a cleaner film, promise!
Ciao!
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