Engaging and entertaining.

Rating: 7/10 (26 June 2007)

Closer is the story of two couples whose lives end up entangled through a series of confrontations and chance meetings ripe with lies, regret and pain. It is consistently engaging, sometimes pretty funny and the characters are generally easy to relate to. Although there are some fairly prominent themes present including the uglier sides of human nature and dysfunctional relationships, I felt that it wasn't a particularly deep film.
I thought the performances were quite good (especially Natalie Portman) but I often felt something was missing from the characters. Although I appreciated the way the film focused on their nastier sides in an uncompromising kind of way, perhaps the characters could have used some more development as responsible adults to contrast against their arguably childish behaviour. Maybe the characters were intended to be as shallow and insecure as they came across but I think without some fundamental redeeming qualities they become less interesting. For example, many of the verbal jabs thrown around seemingly only to cause pain came across as unrealistic for the most part.
To the movie's credit, despite these weaknesses, I always found the characters interesting and the scenes engaging. It just meant I didn't feel Closer was very effective in expressing some kind of deeper meaning. Actually, while watching the movie, I got the impression that it was primarily intended to entertain and just hint a little at some more substantial ideas without actually having the commitment to pursue them.
In this way, Closer works just fine. Some parts are funny, some parts are a bit disturbing or even touching in various ways and most of it is enjoyable to watch. So I thought it was good, quite good, just not great though I don't think it was meant to be.