Never Closer

Rating: 7/10 (27 April 2009)

Contrary to the title, "Closer" shows human beings are incapable of getting too close to each other. Beyond a certain point, any attempt to be closer seems futile or even counterproductive.
Like a strip show, the film reveals how unreliable first impressions are, how time takes off people's protecting armor bit by bit and let them prey on each other. The beginning of love is always excitingly beautiful, but as soon as freshness is gone, love is over, its remains fossilizing into hateful fetters. Even before realizing it, people stop getting closer and have more sex only to aggravate the stalemate. It is illusive that two people become one while making love. Judging from the film, their hearts might be a thousand miles apart when their bodies huddle closely. The first crack in Anna and Larry's love appears when Larry spots Anna talk to Dan in her exhibition. Apologizing for sneering at his jealousy, Anna wraps her arms around Larry's shoulders and hugs him tightly, but the hug is devoid of meaning and affection as they are secretly doubting each other's honesty. Many times in the film hugs only bring cold hollowness.
The movie reminds me of love affairs in my surroundings. For over a year a friend of mine loves a man who doesn't love her, gives up, finds a boyfriend adoring her, and falls in love with her boyfriend's friend in a short while. Another friend seems happy with her boyfriend, only to find later that he considers a pretty woman a "goddess", and the lovers turn enemies. As the movie suggests, perhaps love only consists of a short encounter and painful betrayal, which a friend who is deeply in love disagrees, or maybe the film is too real to be true.
In the end all four characters are unhappy. Dan remains a loser; Larry confines Anna to his side, with another round of mutual destruction waiting to happen. Alice, the most innocent compared with the other three, buries her past and begins a new life with a new name in her home country. In the last scene, she strides proudly in a street, smiling as sweetly as in the beginning and attracting nasty men drooling over her. Probably history will repeat itself. After all, human beings are social animals that are incurably tempted by the possibility of getting closer.