Better than brilliant....

Rating: 10/10 (28 March 2005)

After reading several of your user comments about "Closer," most of which seem to consider it brilliant, I have nothing to add except I found the film better than that, better, in fact, than any movie in memory that deals with sex and "romantic love." It is a masterwork which will linger in the collective consciousness as long as there are movies about sex and "romantic love," a concept which is revealed here to be as false as it is irresistible.
The Mike Nichols' production, with Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, Clive Owen and Jude Law, tells a story, set in London, about two couples who change partners ("Won't you change partners and dance with me?") and change again over a four-year period, during which time they betray each other and themselves with splendid brutality and merciless alacrity.
These marvelous actors create ensemble performances which rank among the best ever committed to film. Their characters are highly intelligent, articulate, sexy and only interested in self-gratification. In other words, people just like you and me.
The wonderful screenplay, with its lacerating, biting wit, and brutal honesty, is by Patrick Marber and based on his play of the same title.
It more than matches up with "Who's Afraid of Virgina Wolfe?" which it has been compared to.
Those benighted souls who might complain about the language in "Closer," should be condemned to perpetual reruns of "The Sound of Music" in Bushland U.S.A. Those who crave better than brilliant direction, dialog and performances, can do no better than "Closer" and reruns of "Closer."