Closer to Natalie you can't come

Rating: 6/10 (28 September 2015)

For a movie that is so dearly loved and so highly recommended by its fans here on IMDb, this is such a cold fish. I have been struggling with what I was going to say, and that just popped out, and, yes, let me say it again, COLD FISH! Let me admit, I can't stand Jude Baby-Faced Law, and Clive Owen is thuggish, like the other reviewer said, so the male leads are off-putting to begin with. Julia Roberts gives a fine performance, a long way off from the Good Old Days of PRETTY WOMAN, but great. As for all those back-handed compliments she gets from a lot of the reviewers here, take it from me, she is great, no buts about that. Everything you'd expect from a star of her quality. I have taken note of Natalie Portman ever since LÉON THE PROFESSIONAL, but, no, I haven't gone for her sci-fi movie series yet, as I have too many other fish to fry, and I have yet to obtain BEAUTIFUL GIRLS, though I have at least seen that one on a pay channel back in February 1998. To get to the point, I rented this movie years ago for Natalie's sake, and it's been on the back-burner for a helluva long time, but I now at last have my store- bought addition to the RavenGlam collection, and there are of course wonderfully glamorous scenes in it - which you prissy lot out there don't go into, you hypocrites! - but the movie JUST ISN'T FUN TO WATCH! It is MOROSE!*
*in all fairness, be sure to read the addendum I posted a bit later at the end of the page
Natalie is, of course, absolutely great. I love her arty tearful shot, it would have been up against my wall too! She proves her acting abilities as a grown-up as well. (If you haven't seen her breakthrough movie already mentioned, I highly recommend that you obtain it immediately!)
As for the strip sequences, I like that the girls do not play to the lowest common denominator, i.e. (on-stage) they remain beautiful and classy, in their slinky pole-swirling perfection. Natalie is stunningly beautiful, love her upper body ratio (the length of her back compared to the length of her legs) and she is simply breathtaking at the start of that second strip sequence (Danny's visit). The thuggish old doctor, of course, has more hardcore tastes, and has her maneuvering into a less glamorous wide-legged pose, off-putting, but that's what crude guys are like. And, though it's strategically self-censored by Doc. Larry's head, it's really more explicit if you view it in slow motion a smidge further on, when she gets up. Almost full frontal for a fragment of a second. Or so it might seem. But not really. Sharon Stone's notorious scene, more than a decade before her, brought to mind. But just as near as dammit. Unfortunately, the pose it led up to, on all fours, is left (mostly) to the viewer's imagination, although she did already bent over for him during the 'flirting' stage of her performance. You'd never ever see Natalie like this anywhere else or ever again. Celebrity skin! And creamy-smooth! With the rear view virtually fully on display for us lowly mortals! Her nakedest film appearance! Of top-ranked actresses, a rarity! To quote her, "Thank you!"
But aside from all that beauty, the movie is so dismal, that one is left feeling the need for something brighter, more cheerful, more worthy of one's attention. Granted, the movie deserves more than my score, but I subtract minus points for it being such a COLD FISH.
Addendum, later the same day. I've analyzed this after some repeated viewing. I've really damned this one for being so wretchedly confusing. We were supposed to instantly latch onto the script skipping a year or so ahead? The disjointed non-linear presentation alienated me instantly; I figured something was wrong, and while I was fumbling about, reacted negatively to the movie. It's like crucial scenes were deleted, we just got the highlights. I'm prepared to say that my initial comments here are quite unfair, that it really is a good movie, but SERIOUSLY FLAWED. A Luke-warm, half-baked fish, okay? :) Will Natalie now come home with me, please? Only with the high heels and G- string, please?