2004
Directed by
Mike Nichols
Produced by
James Clayton, Michael Haley and Duncan Reid
Written by
Patrick Marber
Cast
Julia Roberts .... Anna
Jude Law .... Dan
Clive Owen .... Larry
Natalie Portman .... Alice
Closer has been adapted from the award-winning play written by Patrick Marber, detailing not only the cruelty of relationships but also the boredom. This is no romantic comedy in the style of Pretty Woman, and Richard Gere is not about to come charging in on his white horse, although we can all thank the Lord for that small mercy. No, this is a bleak movie and if you’re on a first date I don’t advise snuggling up to your new piece of fluff for some knooky after you’ve watched this.
The movie follows four people as their lives become intertwined in perhaps not so extraordinary circumstances. Dan (Jude Law) meets and falls in love with Alice (Natalie Portman), who has only just arrived in London from New York. She becomes his muse and inspires this C-grade journalist to finally write that novel we all think we have locked inside us.
During a photo shoot with photographer Anna (Julia Roberts), Dan gets a little hot in the trouser region and falls in love with her. It’s all a bit sudden but there you have it. He steals a quick snog from this slightly startled, but nevertheless intrigued woman. And so it begins. Anna, feeling just a tad guilty after being confronted by Alice for snogging her man, ditches Dan.
Dan being the loathsome, weak, inept bloke he is gets on the internet for a bit of relief in the chat rooms. Here, pretending to be Anna, he hooks up with horny doctor Larry (Clive Owen). And after imploring Dr. Larry to have a quick wank at his desk in the hospital, no less arranges to meet him at a location Dan knows Anna often frequents.
Dr. Larry turns up at the aquarium and approaches Anna, after making sure it’s her and without any other information, proceeds to talk filth until she manages to unravel that it must have been Dirty Dan who did it!
And just as you would expect Larry and Anna fall in love, because of course you would fall in love with a bloke who surfs the net, jerks himself off at work and meets complete strangers for a quick bonk behind the aquarium. He is quite a catch.
This is of course where it gets interesting. Dan cannot give up on Anna and as it turns out she can’t give up on him, so the affair is rekindled. Eventually Dan can’t live with himself, (I couldn’t live with Jude Law either) and tells Alice all, she runs off into the night ostensibly never to be seen again. At the same time Anna tells Larry that she’s been getting bonked behind his back and also just from behind.
Cue extremely long scene where Anna describes the sex, while Larry yells blue murder at her. This scene was made even worse for me as there were two little old ladies close by who looked like dirty hoe talk was not really their thing. So Anna and Dan go off together. But Larry just can’t seem to get over it. He, of course, stumbles into Alice working as a stripper.
Look I could go on and on about the plot, but suffice to say there’s sufficient intrigue to keep everyone going for a good long while and a twist you won’t see coming at the end. But to the point, this is a clever movie with loads of really sharp banter, perhaps because it was tried and tested on the stage and most of the dialogue is untouched from the original production.
It’s a stark portrayal of relationships, there’s plenty of sex and talk of love, but no feeling of romance. This is the hard coal face of life in the marital trenches and make no mistake, it’s kinda grim.
The most redeeming feature is of course hottie Clive Owen. At last a real man, because lets face it, Jude Law is a boy on a man's errand if ever there was one. Clive may play an arrogant son-of-a-bitch in this, but he has the best scenes, from internet masturbation, to propositioning his ex-wife for a quickie in return for his signature on the divorce papers.
