Closer: 8/10

Rating: 8/10 (5 December 2004)

From September to the end of the year, Jude Law will have been in six movies-I ? Huckabees, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Alfie, A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Aviator, and Closer. I'm sure most people are sick of him, but I think he's a good actor, and I like seeing him take on different types of roles. Certainly, Closer is a different type of role, and Law gets to use his natural British tongue here. Law also has some great support here: Natalie Portman (coming off of her role in Garden State), Clive Owen (now becoming more mainstream thanks to...King Arthur?), and Julia Roberts (who'd think she'd be GOOD in something?). And when you're being directed by Mike Nichols, how bad can you really be?
Alice (Portman) is hit by a car and is taken to the hospital by Dan (Law). They fall in love. Dan has his picture taken by Anna (Roberts) and falls in love with her. He plays a trick on Larry (Owen) by pretending to be Anna online. Anna and Larry meet. They fall in love. Things continually get switched around like that.
Closer is based on a play by Patrick Marber. There can't be more than 10 scenes, most of the story is relied on by dialogue, and there's a scarce number of characters. Now, I'm not sure if it's that fact or not, but it seemed like Mike Nichols did an outstanding job directing. This could just be me and my quirky film tastes, but I loved how there was absolutely no sense of time. You saw two people together for ten minutes, then a new scene, where something obviously must have happened, but what? That's where the dialogue comes in. That's how we find out what has happened in the time lapses. It's Nichols not condescending to the audience. He's trusting us enough to put together the pieces for the movie. In a way, this movie reminded me a lot of Godard's Contempt, in that scenes lasted for a long time. In Contempt about 45 minutes of the middle of the movie is one scene in a house, with two people talking. Closer obviously was influenced by that movie, and that's a good thing.
All four of the lead actors (in fact, basically the only four actors) are amazing-more than I thought possible for any of them. Roberts (known in the film community as "that person who stole Ellen Burstyn's Oscar in 2000") does a surprisingly good job-she seems to not have any ego here (now THAT is surprising), and that allows her to put in a realistic performance as one of those pretentious art-gallery types. Owen, who had been Dan in the original stage production, seemed to know what do to the most, and for that, was probably the best out of the four, closely rivaled by Portman. Shedding her goody-goody roles of the past, she plays a stripper who becomes entangled with everyone else. Garden State proved her acting talents, and Closer confirmed them. Law also proved that his six-films-a-year style doesn't faze him at all-he deserves all six, if not more.
One thing I didn't like about Closer is the fact that it seemed to be rather long (reminded me of both Contempt and Solaris). It's less than 100 minutes, but seemed longer. However, the simple (yet complex) story is sustained for that runtime, making Closer a great, challenging film to watch-there's some explicitness in it that wasn't necessary, but if you can get through that, I think Closer will offer a complex night at the movies.
My rating: 8/10
Rated R for sequences of graphic sexual dialogue, nudity/sexuality and language.