love is a collision course

Rating: 9/10 (15 April 2007)

Closer starts rather gently with a romantic song ringing ever so delicately as two characters approach each other, amidst the crowded streets of London. Then something happens, something injures. That's the story Closer is trying to tell. Two relationships sail smoothly across time, then something happens. Dan and Alice meet through an accident she sustains during a collision course with an automobile. They share information about their lives, jobs and romantic history. He shares more than her. He doesn't notice this, perhaps because all men are secretly into themselves. They visit places, a clinic, a memorial park, his destination. He almost leaves no mark but because he's taken with her, he leaves his name and she gives him hers. And they live happily ever after. Then something happens. He's written a book. Anna is shooting his portrait for the book's back cover. She's read the literature. She says she likes it. She's lying. She doesn't really like the book. You can see it in her eyes. He cannot though and when she tells him that she loves the book, he's flattered. He's attracted to the woman with a sad air, a secretive stare. He offers a kiss. She measures his intentions, his face, his game. She accepts the kiss. For a moment, she sees her life with him, yes, happily ever after. Then something happens.
Love is an accident, the film wants to say. Or is it love is a lie? Or is it secrets are lies. Or does it ask the viewer to choose, secrets or lies? The four characters in Closer are in a conundrum. They cannot choose between the two slippery choices. They think there's more in the menu. They choose secrets, the sneaking suspicion eats at them. They choose lies, truth knocks them in the head. They don't know. They can't see.
Closer plays like an antidote to the charming poison of the usual Hollywood romantic comedies or even the year's incisive but more hopeful offering, Before Sunset. It's a cautionary tale. The words are weapons, they're also the advice. This what you shouldn't say. This is what you should say. To salvage a relationship, to end another, what action is safer to take?
This is a wordy movie, relentlessly talky and heavy. Scenes extend because it wants to capture real time at parts. Monologues are avoided. The dialogue is clipped, sound and sudden. And they are delivered with venom.
The actors take center stage. Natalie Portman portrays Alice. She looks way too precious but she delivers her lines the way she should, with heart. Jude Law is Dan. He gives the character a knotted edge, as if on the verge of a solution but still blocked by a dead end. He's a pleasure to watch. Clive Owen is Larry. He's the alpha male, a scary figure, also the most humanly defensive. And of course, Julia Roberts is Anna. Guarded, docile in nature and the eventual prisoner. Julia portrays her character, devouring the entirety of Anna without fear. She gamely takes on her rotten first strike capability, her lockstep desires and loneliness with thespian magic. She proves us all right. She can do everything.