In Love as in War: No Holds Barred!

Rating: 9/10 (28 March 2017)

Mike Nichols' "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" was about two couples whose relationships were so corrupted on an emotional level that they didn't have trouble using one another for hurtful purposes. I find the kinship too evident to be ignored, I could even find shades of Richard Burton fusing from the caveman charisma of Clive Oven, while Jude Law embodied the sensitive side of manhood, at least on the surface. I can mention the two female protagonists but this is a man's film, women's hearts are only tools forging the real rivalry between two schools of male sensitivities, the same premise with a female director would have totally changed the face of the story. But as a guy, I could 'feel' the film.
Jude Law is Dan, the intellectual or the artist, he's got that brooding hypnotic smile of a man constantly caressing the dream of becoming an acclaimed writer, from the obituaries he wrote, he developed a talent for smooth and euphemistic and words. He falls in love with Alice (Natalie Portman) a strip-tease dancer who left New York after a break-up, and immediately, he reveals his weaknesses, displays the kind of modesty that is so exaggerated it obviously confines to pride, but it works with Alice. It works because she is young and impressionable, she can see the game Dan is playing but she's enjoying it actually, she's not naive about men but so disillusioned about herself she indulges to childish lucidity and let him have the upper hand. So, when he announces his decision to leave her because he loves Anna (Julia Robert), she's angry but can't hate him.
She should have reasons to hate him, all he sees in Anna is that she's not Alice, she's harder to get, she's mysterious, she's taller and more mature, she doesn't need him so he needs her even more. Dan is a writer who sees life as a narrative and needs to earn her love, to be in control. Anna is a photographer and a well-established artist, but she feels like a hack, she only pretends to have talent while one can say she doesn't add much to the beauty shown in her picture. To a certain degree, she's closer to Alice in terms of self-esteem. It all comes to three persons who are not honest about themselves. Larry (Owen), the fourth force of the film, makes an accidental entrance after having a sexual chat with Dan, thinking he'll meet a nymphomaniac slut named Anna. The real bitch is Karma... and Dan, to a certain degree.
It's appropriate that Larry has the only regular job as a doctor. He's not an intellectual, he's manly, he's sexual and sensual, he exudes self-confidence but is distraught when he realizes that his rival is the baby-faced Jude Law. But as a guy, he can see behind his facade, when Anna leaves him, his manhood is hurt because Anna seems to be literally possessed by Dan and under the questionings of Larry, she reveals how good a lover he was, among many details. Larry fuels himself with enough anger and sadness so he can prepare his revenge on Dan. It's a matter of raw territoriality; he needs to possess his woman back and teach Dan one thing or two about women. While there's no good or bad people in the film, you can tell Dan and Anna are the one who're taught a lesson.
See the way they confess their infidelities, as sorry as they are, the hearts aren't there. They don't believe their own words; they just wait for the angry comment before moving forward. Everything is said for a purpose that can be either sincerity or fun. When Anna is about to leave Larry, she tells him that Dan is a gentler lover, when she gets back to Larry, she reveals that Dan is a mama's boy who weeps after sex so much for sincerity and sharing secrets. Larry throws that in Dan's face, triumphantly. He got Anna back by having sex in exchange of the divorce, Anna pitied him but he knew having sex would arouse Dan's old insecurities, because a man who wants to be in control can't accept a partial possession, Larry even affords the luxury to hit the final nail by having sex with Alice. Dan loses Alice not because of the act but the resulting suspicion.
The real character's arc closed here is Alice, she's the one who changes, who comes to age, the film starts and ends with her, as a girl who'll never be used. Dan realizes that he lost his love because of his own jealousy and might become a better man. Anna came back to Larry, maybe she thought she didn't deserve better but he played the game and used her and Dan with incredible dexterity, saving Alice in the process. Clive Owen and Natalie Portman were given some of the best roles of their career, rightfully Oscar-nominated. Even the script deserved a few nods because I've seen movies with marital arguments but rarely that rang as true as the one between Larry and Anna, this is a film that talk broadly about sex, understands the adults to the point of showing them playing dirty games, unintentionally or not. When Larry tells Dan that he had sex with Alice, there was something of Burton's smile after he had just played 'Get the guests'.
If the four characters of "Closer" seem less troubled and ill-intentioned than "Virginia Woolf', they all seek love in a way we can suspect to be genuine and sincere, but during this four-year journey, the streak of betrayals will reveal how twisted our actions can be in the name love and the limits of the so-called selflessness of love, a dirty game where the ends justify the means. Forty years after "Virginia Woolf", Nichols prove that he still knows his business when it comes to intertwining couple troubles.