A Closer Look at Alice

Rating: 6/10 (26 April 2009)

Alice, an American stripper in London, is a selling point of this movie. Credit should be given to not only her daring incorporation of nudity into purity, but also the mystery she brings about.
Her identity alone is so mysterious that it is not until the movie draws to its end when we could know that her real name is Jane Rachel – Alice Ayres is the pseudonym she adopted from one of the tiles she saw in Postman's Park. In fact, Alice accepts her identity as not quite human for any of the other characters, but as an object so that others could benefit. She was the subject of Dan's book, the model for Anna's photography project and the stripper for Larry.[1]
All the characters have a tense relationship with truth—only Alice is "not passionate about veracity."[2] In real life, she uses her pseudonym, Alice Ayres, while in the strip club she uses her real name, Jane Rachel. She does not, from beginning to end, reveal her identity to Dan, the man she loves deeply, but exposes everything, including her body, to Larry, the man she has no feeling for. Her inability to deal with the truth causes her to leave Dan at the end.[3]
Still, Alice remains the most believable character. As Portman, the actress who played Alice, points out, "Alice is really alone when she comes to London, so she makes up her entire world, completely creates herself. Yet, she also has this childlike side. She's really honest and direct in her feelings, which distinguishes her from the other characters. So though she's lying about her persona, she's the most direct, honest character in the film."[4]
The last scene echoes the opening, in which Alice is walking down the street, and strikes our curiosity about her outcome since she, once again, continues walking when the red light is on. According to the play, from which this movie was adapted, Alice dies in an accident, and Dan summons Anna and Larry to Postman's Park to remember her. It is at this point that Dan, Anna and Larry realize that they have been eluding themselves for four years, and that it was Alice that, in a roundabout way, unified them. She helped them find their identities because she herself had none.[5] It is indicated in the movie, nonetheless, that Alice will die in the end. On the tile which Alice saw at the beginning of the movie, it was written as follows: Alice Ayres, Daughter of a Bricklayer's Labourer, Who by Intrepid Conduct Saved 3 Children from a Burning House in Union Street Borough at the Cost of Her Own Young Life. It can be assumed, therefore, that the other three characters might be the "3 Children", and that Alice might die for them.
References [1] Iris. www.goodreads.com/book/show/399138.Closer Retrieved 26 April 2009. [2] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closer_(play) Retrieved 25 April 2009. [3] Ibid. [4]www.cinema.com/articles/3124/closer-alice-natalie-portman.phtml Retrieved 26 April 2009. [5] Iris. www.goodreads.com/book/show/399138.Closer Retrieved 26 April 2009.