CLOSER by Mike Nichols
December 1st, 2004 by Andre Soares
Closer (2004) 
Director: Mike Nichols. Screenplay: Patrick Marber, from his 1997 play. Cast: Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Clive Owen, Natalie Portman
THE PERFECT DYSFUNCTIONAL DATE MOVIE
Mike Nichols’s first feature film, an adaptation of Edward Albee’s acclaimed play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, is a harrowing, no-holds-barred, soul-wrenching dissection of two married couples whose inner demons are let loose during an emotionally-charged night of game playing, drinking, and screaming. That was nearly forty years ago. Fast forward to 2004 and to Nichols’ newest film adaptation of an acclaimed play, Patrick Marber’s Closer, another look at two dysfunctional heterosexual couples, this time in the age of cyberspace and AIDS.
On the surface, not much has changed since 1966: although the action has been stretched out from one night to a couple of years, the new quartet also dwells in a social bubble in which they bicker, yell profanities, pretend to be someone else, and are utterly vicious to one another. On a deeper level, however, everything has changed. While Virginia Woolf lays bare the inner core of its characters — with the assistance of four actors in top form — Closer barely scratches the surface of its one-dimensional, wholly artificial protagonists, played with varying degrees of effectiveness by the film’s four leads.
The chief difference between those two Mike Nichols films lies in the source material. While Albee’s words pierce the carotid, Marber’s scratch an elbow and break a couple of fingernails. The situations depicted in Closer (see synopsis) may seem hard-hitting, but without some sort of psychological undercurrent to give them gravitas, all that lying, cheating, and nonstop partner switching come across as mere titillation. Anna (Julia Roberts) dumps her husband Larry (Clive Owen) for Dan (Jude Law) without us ever understanding why she even married Larry in the first place. Our discovery that she has been having an affair with Dan behind her husband’s back feels contrived because we neither get to see their illicit relationship develop nor her marriage to Larry fall apart. Dan’s off-and-on girlfriend, Alice (Natalie Portman), makes an abrupt decision at the end of the film that is as unexpected as it is false; it comes out of nowhere and, really, it goes nowhere. Perhaps as a means to take away our attention from the vapidity of it all, Marber, who also penned the screenplay, comes up with a full array of sexually explicit lines that are bandied about during heated arguments.
Now, never-ending yelling about the joys of extra-marital fucking may (or may not) shock the pious, but it will probably leave most filmgoers feeling merely impatient. For no matter how many times the four characters resort to sex talk (and that is all the sex they do on screen), nothing dissipates the overall artificiality of the film’s dialogue and situations. In the confines of the stage, such lack of realism may be permitted or even strived for, but in the naturalistic settings of Nichols’ London it just looks silly. A final and unnecessary plot twist adds nothing to our understanding of what went on earlier. (No, it doesn’t involve Dan and Larry hooking up for life, though that would have explained a lot about their behavior toward women.)
Despite the poorly delineated characters, actors’ director Mike Nichols extracts at least a modicum of substance from three of the four leads — Natalie Portman’s stilted Alice being the sole exception. Stripped of all the artifices that have hampered several of her previous performances, a mature Julia Roberts shines as Anna, bringing a much needed touch of warmth to a role that in a less capable actress’ hands would have become a pathetic nonentity. In fact, Roberts is the only performer who manages to fully rise above the script’s shortcomings. Clive Owen displays a powerful, magnetic screen presence that would have made even Clark Gable shudder, but this talented actor is ultimately incapable of transforming stagy lines into real-life talk. Jude Law has a couple of good dramatic moments when he realizes that others can play his game as well as he does. On the other hand, Law’s attempts to make his immature loverboy charming fall flat, for Dan is little more than Alfie’s obnoxious twin brother — something that makes Alice’s, and particularly Anna’s infatuation with him seem patently absurd.
In the final analysis, Closer fails for the same reason that its truth-impaired characters fail to connect with one another: It keeps us at a distance from its inner core, focusing instead on artifice and pseudo-shocking banalities. Those looking for a truly fearless look at dysfunctional human relationships may want to skip this Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? redux, and head for a DVD rental store to watch the real thing.
Londoner Dan (Jude Law) — obituary writer by day, novelist by night — meets a kooky American, Alice (Natalie Portman), after she gets hit by a car. (She was looking at the wrong side of the road.) The two immediately begin a relationship that inspires Dan’s writing. Months later, Dan’s novel is ready to hit the presses. He goes to a photo studio to get his picture taken for the dust jacket, and leaves the place madly infatuated with the photographer, Anna (Julia Roberts).
Frustrated that Anna will not succumb to his charms, Dan plays a prank on her via the Internet. In a chatroom, he pretends to be a sexual maniac named Anna, thus luring Larry, a horny dermatologist (Clive Owen), to the Aquarium where the real Anna often goes looking for potential models. Much to Dan’s consternation, Anna and Larry fall in lust and sometime later get married. Yet, Dan perseveres. He must have Anna, who ends up having a torrid affair with him. Once Larry realizes that he has been betrayed by Anna and Dan, he goes after Alice. More couple switching is on the way.
Notes:
In the original London production of Closer, Clive Owen played Dan, Jude Law’s role in the film. The other principals were Liza Walker (Alice), Sally Dexter (Anna), and Ciaran Hinds (Larry).
Closer won an Olivier Award as best play (in the United Kingdom) of 1997. The 1999 Broadway production was nominated for a Tony Award.
Cate Blanchett was initially cast as Anna, but was forced to bow out because she was pregnant.
At a November 2004 Q&A session at the Writers Guild in Los Angeles, author Patrick Marber explained that Closer is just the story of four people unable to have a healthy relationship—without being a statement about something universal. Marber admitted that he wrote the play at a time when his views of romance were at a low ebb. He also said that he "hated" Damien Rice’s song "The Blower’s Daughter" at first, adding that he has since grown to like it.
Spoilers: Marber also explained that Dan’s discovery of Alice’s fake identity at the end of Closer was only meant to show that Alice had a bigger secret than anyone else in the story. Her reasons for not revealing her real name to Dan, however, remain muddy.
In an article for The Independent, Patrick Marber wrote that his inspiration for Closer was Steven Soderbergh’s 1989 film sex, lies and videotape.
Spoilers: Closer the film ends "before" the actual ending in the play. In the play, Alice gets run over by a car while walking on a New York street, while Larry and Anna split up once again.
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