closer

Rating: 10/10 (27 April 2009)

The movie excels at describing vividly about people's attitude towards sex and love, which are probably the most controversial topics in our daily life. Actually, I am not surprised at all about its way of presenting the crashes between love and sex. Mike Nichols sees through people's deepest minds and explodes the so-called dark-sides to us all. For example, Alice's (Natalie Portman) vulnerability in front of love, Anna's (Julia Roberts) hesitation in choosing between love and sex, Dan's (Jude Law) naiveness and 'inexperience' in dealing with what he thinks as the 'true love', Larry's (Clive Owen) complicity and his complicated handling of conflicts between love and sex. These four characters represent different attitudes on how we judge and make decisions in the matter of love and sex. Some people may complain about the explosive depiction of sex, even the abrasive and brutal dialogs on the issue of love, but without doubt, the movie digs out what we are afraid of admitting. We are too shy and self-inclusive towards love and sex, but we hold more expectations of being understood and accepted. So this is the charm of this film---expose the dark sides of love and sex, but to make people more yearning for them.