Thought Provoking But Theatrical

Rating: Null/10 (19 January 2006)

Adapted from his own play by Patrick Marber, 'Closer' is without a shadow of a doubt the most theatrical film I have seen in a very long time. This isn't entirely a criticism, as it establishes a firm structure upon which plot and characterisation can be built. This skeleton is very leanly fleshed-out: there's a great economy of location, with each scene change advancing the narrative by many months, and we are provided with minimal information as to what has occurred in the lives of the principal characters in the intervening time. This, of course, means that the use of flashbacks  though rare  jars with the general tone and rhythm of the piece. A more cinematic re-structuring of Marber's script may have remedied this, but I fear greater fault lies in the rather pedestrian direction of Mike Nichols.
The performances are sound, particularly that of Clive Owen. Although unsubtle and aggressively (though not violently) sexual, there's an endearing earnestness to his character, Dan. Interestingly, he is the only character who is entirely open about his feelings, intentions and desires. He immediately admits to an infidelity, fully prepared to accept the consequences of his stupidity  and is outraged not by Julia Roberts's admission that she has been sleeping with Jude Law but by her deception of him. Marber clearly believes that Dan is a model for the modern honest sexual male  openly acknowledging his pornographic lusts  and this may be true, I suppose. Unfortunately Nichols direction, in spite of Owen's performance, renders Dan as a tragic-comic caricature much of the time.
A painfully flat performance by Julia Roberts  another one of Marber's bland women  doesn't help. She has only one outstanding scene, a vicious argument with Owen where she is forced to confess the sordid details of her liaison with Law. Even here, though, it's Owen who steals the moment with the glorious kiss-off line which it would be inappropriate to reprint here  but which I hope, in the course of some future failing relationship, to use.
Law is no more annoying than usual, and tries hard to turn on the charm. What could have been an interesting representation of a selfish moral coward verges all too often (and unsuccessfully) toward apologia.
Natalie Portman gives a capable turn, too, as Law's stripper girlfriend, Alice. All things to all men - Caesar's Wife in a sequined thong - she becomes an object of fascination for both Law and Owen (and briefly, artistically, for Roberts, though this is not developed). We are told that her wild sexual history was used as inspiration for the former's only novel and that, in her words, the only thing he missed out was "the truth", but we are, as an audience, told nothing of her past. A sexually obsessed Owen seeks her out, pays for her to strip for him, but becomes frustrated because she'll tell him nothing but the truth about herself and her sexuality  even if he is incapable of recognising it as such. She's cast in a variety of fantasy roles: Law's rescued waif and Owen's whore (Marber's Sphynx, perhaps?), but how far either is accurate is uncertain. Alice, I think, meant to be shaped as much by our own prejudices and preconceptions as she is by Portman's performance.
Portman is a strange choice for this role. She is a stunningly beautiful young woman, but  even when garbed in the most minimal pole-dancing garb  oddly nonsexual. She's like Audrey Hepburn in that regard. Perhaps the argument could be proffered for Alice as a modern-day Holly Golightly  both, after all, have mysterious pasts, work in areas of the sex-industry (though unlike Capote's Golightly there is no indication that Alice is, or ever has been, a prostitute) and have rather tortuous emotional relationships with their unsuccessful writer boyfriends.
'Closer' is a good play. It's not a bad film, but Nichols surprisingly fails to recognise it's essential un-cinematic nature.