A harsh but brutally honest and outstanding film

Rating: 9/10 (19 December 2004)

In this bruising, emotionally scarring but beautifully made film, four people discover the ups and downs of relationships and the effects of switching partners. Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, and Natalie Portman play the four using every ounce of talent in their souls, infusing these unlikable characters with real emotion so that the viewer's heart grieves every time one of them hurts another. It is quality of the highest caliber, and I did not notice until the closing credits that these four are the only characters in the film. They carry the weight on their own and are aided immeasurably by veteran director Mike Nichols.
First, Dan (Law) meets Alice (Portman) after their sidewalk flirtation results in Alice getting hit by a car. Dan, a newspaper obituary writer, is inspired by her life as a stripper and writes a novel. When he is doing a photo shoot to publicize his book, he falls for Anna (Roberts), the photographer. As a practical joke, he sets her up with Larry (Owen, "King Arthur"), a dermatologist, but they eventually get married. However, Anna sees Dan the whole time. This is only the beginning of the partner swapping. By the end of the film, every character has been revealed to be dishonest, manipulative, and they all cry at some point. This is a very hard film to watch because of its brutal dialogue and generally unlikable characters, but as I said before, the actors bring such a sympathetic quality to their roles that it is impossible to stop watching the movie. Like the four people, the audience hopes for a happy ending, but of course there is none. By the end of the film, when one character realizes that he truly loves another one, so much backstabbing and betrayal has gone on that it is too late for them to be happy, and this leads to a an ambiguous ending that ends the movie on a pitch-perfect note.
Mike Nichols ("The Graduate," HBO's "Angels In America") uses his almost-forty year experience with films to deliver a whopping, emotionally draining piece of celluloid that is lyrical and beautifully moving in its images and soundtrack, transcending the despicable characters. But it is this fact that the people are not likable that really makes the film outstanding. The dialogue (adapted by Patrick Marber from his play) is so witty and piercingly honest that it hurts to watch the characters spar off, but it is so tantalizingly interesting that I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. Nichols uses Damien Rice's song "The Blower's Daughter" in the first and last scenes of the movie as a beautiful, stirring component to wonderfully shot sequences. It is this care that every member of the film uses in every frame and that is what, when all is said and done, puts "Closer" among the best films of the year.