Four people become entangled.

Rating: 6/10 (23 March 2005)

Synopsis: Dan (Jude Law) meets Alice (Natalie Portman) after she is hit by a cab. She's just moved to London from NYC. He takes her to the hospital, where they chat and become friends. He writes obituaries; she's a stripper.
A year later, Dan and Alice are living together. He's finished a novel and falls for the photographer that takes the picture for his book jacket, Anna (Julia Roberts). He introduces Anna to Larry (Clive Owen) and the four people become sexually entangled over the next few years.
Review: Closer is a respectable effort. The film had a lot of potential, but failed in so many ways. Closer can be seen as the anti-date movie. It's hard to like the characters, and even harder to like their actions. Even so, it paints a picture so close to reality.
A controversy revolving Closer was the sexual content. While sex never occurs on screen, it's a prominent topic and is actually the plot (if there is one) to the film. The only nudity is seen at the strip club, but the dialogue is almost repulsive. Most is not needed, or could have been better if it was only implied. A scene in the strip club with Alice and Larry is probably the height of the vulgarness.
Julia Roberts and Jude Law turn in good performances, but are easily out acted by Natalie Portman, who proves to be an adult, and Clive Owen, who shows incredible emotion with his sleazy character.
Closer is the perfect example of love at first sight. The tag line for the film states: "If you believe in love at first sight, you never stop looking." That's essentially the core of the movie. Were these people truly in love? If they were, why would they be so unfaithful to their "true love"? Is appearance and first impressions an important factor in determining who we're going to spend our life with?
Each character in Closer has their share of lies. Lying to their current lover, lying to themselves. It effectively shows that men will do anything to get what they want, and how quickly the women will fall for it. I'm not saying that the female characters are any less guilty in immorality or whatever you'd call it, but they seemed to be the more naive of the four.
Closer contains a great deal of good, but in all, it doesn't add up to a complete motion picture. The sexual content could have been reduced, thus unneeded in many instances. A very depressing film, but thought provoking nevertheless. Good performances abound, but do not make up for holes that could have easily turned this average film into a more compelling motion picture. Viewer discretion advised: Closer is not for everyone.
C (6/10)