Set in present-day London, Closer introduces the oft-underrated geometry of the partner-swapping love quadrangle: four beautiful people (two Americans, two Brits) fall in love and lust, and ultimately suffer through betrayal and heartbreak. Owen is Larry, a dermatologist married to Roberts’ Anna, a photographer who has an affair with Dan, an aspiring novelist in a relationship with Natalie Portman’s Alice, a stripper just off the plane from New York. The web of lies, passion and sex persistently grows, until everything eventually comes crashing down.
Nichols, after a long absence from film, has recently reached a creative high at HBO with stunning television projects Wit and Angels in America. This is very evident in Closer, undoubtedly his best picture in years; with 1966’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Nichols had shown his graceful skill for stage-to-screen adaptations, but Closer is a film of an entirely different level and intensity.
The performances given by this stellar four-person cast are incredible, already worth the price of admission. Roberts plays Anna as the unapologetic, conceited woman that she is (Dan says, "You’ve ruined my life," she replies, "You’ll get over it"), and Law never ceases to personify the disgusting cad; Dan is a weak, whiny man whose only redeeming quality is that he looks like Jude Law. But the other two, Portman and Owen, are the ones that truly shine. After her revelation of a performance in last year’s endearingly earnest Garden State, Portman has grown up as a talented, mature actress, and her performance in Closer is a career-best; as Alice, she is able to juggle facets of youthful confidence and childish naivete with equal panache. She is heartbreaking to watch, even when delivering such irreverent lines as, "Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off. But it’s more fun if you do." Clive Owen, on the other hand, that smoldering Brit whose 2004 breakout included lead roles in Closer and King Arthur, gives one of the most deeply intense portraits of a betrayed man I have ever seen; he is utterly astounding, possessing a sweltering ferocity that ravages the screen. In several instances, his eyes alone provide a non-verbal grammar able to communicate the character’s powerful emotions; his versatility – from his tearing anxiety during the strip club scene to the smug self-assurance displayed at the dermatologist’s office – is as well compelling.
But it is Patrick Marber’s screenplay that is the film’s greatest achievement. Marber, who adapted his own play from the London stage, is able to write honest, shockingly candid dialogue that not only shocks, but reverberates. The dialogue is intelligent, rich and real, and is bleak and blistering in its intricate candor; at times, it is also austerely irreverent. Marber is able to draw out characters that aren’t necessarily original, but fundamentally genuine and three-dimensional – these are all flawed people that act based on basic human nature, and Marber explores this theme through its unsympathetic complexities. However, he doesn’t even need dialogue for his talent to transcend: in one noteworthy scene in which no words are spoken between the two, Dan and Larry converse in an Internet sex chat room, and Marber exhibits his clever sense of pacing and wording. He is a magnificent manipulator of emotion and context through the written and spoken word, and every bruising sentence in the film leaves a mark of heartbreak and loss.
On a lighter note, the screenplay also includes some deliciously quotable quotes that I can imagine people breaking up with their partners just to be able to use them. (Here are some of my favorites, a choice few: "Don’t say it! Don’t you f@*#ing say ‘you’re too good for me.’ I am, but don’t say it.’ "Thank you. Thank you for your honesty. Now f@*k off and die, you f@*ked up slag." "I don’t love you anymore. Goodbye.")
Nichols and Marber collaborate in creating an atmosphere of emotional isolation and claustrophobia that makes the film sting even more, and the lyrics of Damien Rice’s beautifully melancholic The Blower’s Daughter, a song that bookends the film, all the more resonant. Rice continually croons, "I can’t take my eyes off you, I can’t take my eyes off you" throughout the song, until he finally ends with "‘Til I find somebody new." Closer delivers the same unfortunate message.
Bottom Line: A brilliant triumph of acting and writing, Closer is a film of scorching, bruising, throbbing intensity and refreshing maturity – one of the best, most honest, and frank dramas in a while.
Grade: A
• Watch Closer, in theaters April 6th.
• Don’t watch Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous. Sandra Bullock returns as Gracie Hart in the unnecessary sequel to 2000’s hilarious Miss Congeniality. But as the character is mischaracterized as a ditz and jokes are rehashed to unfunny results, the once-amusing fish-out-of-water premise wears thin, leaving the film with nothing but bad Vegas gags and terrible memories of watching Connie and Carla.