A celebration of cultural coarseness?

Rating: 1/10 (24 October 2005)

I haven't read all the reviews of this film - life is too short - but I find the general chorus of approval frightening. Personally I felt that Closer was one of the most revolting films I have seen recently. I abhorred the technicalities of the script - the dialogue was way too smart; people just do not string together two disparate faux-incisive comments back-to-back in the way the film constantly did. It was nearly as grating as the constant rhyming of "boy" and "joy" in Miss Saigon. I did not so much mind the language as the cruelty which all the characters ladled out, especially the men to the women. Unfortunately this does seem to mirror a coarsening of at least UK society. My objection is that the film appeared to approve of such cruelty in the service of honesty. Ever since Thatcher said there was no such thing as society and thereby permitted people to sate their appetite for self British civility, in daily life and culture, has been in decline. This film gives it a helping shove. I heard someone on Radio Four say recently that German Nazism did not come out of a clear blue sky. Its roots were in the "coarsening" of German society in the 20s and 30s. See "Closer" if you want to see what is happening to us. I am disappointed that most of your reviewers were blind to it.