 |
 2004 R / Drama Romance Directed by: Starring: |
- If you believe in love at first sight, you never stop looking.
Summary Capsule
- A lovers'... quadrangle. Now there's progress for you!
Mutant Meter
     |
Movie Store [proceeds go toward monthly MRFH upkeep]
Sue's Rating: Amazed and appalled.
Sue's Review: Justin is going to kill me. Queue notwithstanding, this is the first review I've written since witnessing the ultimate mutant marriage, so it's probably beyond unseemly that I'm covering a movie that screams Infidelity in big neon letters. I'm really sorry. I didn't know what I was getting into until I popped it in the DVD player. And now I'm so disgusted that I need to vent. So Justin's going to kill me and leave my children orphans. (Although Detroit'll probably be buried in ten feet of snow until August, so I have plenty of time to change my identity and run for the border.)
Based on the play by the same name, Closer's cast is small but mighty with Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, Clive Owen and the ever-present and oh-so-pretty Jude Law. Our heroes and heroines (though I use those words loosely) play a photographer, a stripper, a dermatologist and an obituraist respectively. You can't say they aren't diverse career choices!
At the beginning of the movie, Law and Portman's characters experience the phenomenon known as "love at first sight". This is fine except that not long after, Law and Roberts's characters experience the phenomenon known as "love at first sight". Then Roberts and Owens. Then Roberts and Law. Then, perhaps, Owens and Portman, followed by Roberts and Owens and Oh heck, I lost track. Suffice to say the entire movie is a square-dance of lust, love, obsession and misery. Screw someone else's partner, do-se-d'oh!
Technically TECHNICALLY, it was an interesting sort of film. With (apparently) very few changes made from the stage production, there's very little action and relatively few sets. Closer is almost entirely driven by its dialogue, and even I can admit that it's well written and beautifully performed. Some of the connections between the characters are a stretch I don't think the Internet is small enough for Law's character to have connected specifically with Owen's character for a bit of prankish cyber-nookie leading to the mobius loop of carnality that it did but that's neither here nor there. The passage of large chunks of time revealed only by casual conversational asides was also a little disorienting. ("Golly, we've been together for a whole year!", "Can you believe we're married now?", "Gee whilickers, time flies when you're a sex crazed lust bunny in this film!") I can forgive it because that's a very necessary device in many stage productions, but I wish they'd found a less clumsy way to handle it. Anyway, Closer is a classy, well-written and well-acted film. See, I can be objective.
What annoys the living heck out of me isn't the fact that someone cheated on someone else in the story. I'm not even quite so bothered that EVERYONE cheated on everyone else, although as I've mentioned in other reviews (Alfie, Young Adam), that rampant promiscuity is one of my personal flashpoints. What killed me was the repetitiveness of the confessions and the predictability of the aftermaths. Every single episode went something like this:
-
Character A: I slept with Character C. and I feel just terrible about this but I'm leaving you for him/her and I don't want you upset. Forgive me?
Character B: Sure, although I'm completely devastated and might never recover.
Character A: That was too easy. Are you sleeping with someone else?
Character B: Yes. I'm sleeping with D. [[Alternate answer: I'll be sleeping with D. imminently.]]
Character A: You [insert exceedinly naughty word(s) here]!!!!!! How could you do that to me?!!!!!!
Plus, there's the problem of learning very little about the characters aside from their professions and the fact that they're all tortured by the aforementioned promiscuity (theirs and everyone elses'). It's very hard to connect emotionally to any of these people because they're all self-centered bundles of ill-advised and unstable hormonal urges. I was unable to sympathize with any of them and by halfway through the film, I seriously didn't give a rip about how the story would end. A pox on them all. Sheesh, if one of them did happen to have the pox, that's pretty much a foregone conclusion anyway.
The only thing I found myself truly intrigued by, was the tagline: "If you believe in love at first sight, you never stop looking." What an incredibly cynical statement and yet I think there's a lot of truth to it. The rush that comes with new love, or new lust as the case probably was, is an incredibly powerful feeling and like all powerful feelings, I can certainly understand the addictive potential there. After all, that's how most affairs are started from that search to recreate the buzz of new romance or desire.
Still, when I feel more impact from a tagline than I did from the entire movie, I can't call the project a rollicking success.
 I'll love you forever my darling...
|
- Man, Amidala's getting sort of edgy these days, ain't she?
- A very good reason not to eat fish. Or children.
- The secret sex lives of dermatologists. Who knew?
- Jude Law always looks like a pouty little brat when he cries.
- When in England, look to the RIGHT before you cross the street.
- The humorous euphemisms of obituarists - another reason to dread dying.
Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?
Nah.
Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]
-
When Closer was on stage, Clive Owen played "Dan", the role Jude Law has in the film. Props to Clive for learning both parts!
Groovy Quotes
-
Alice: I don't want to lie. I can't tell the truth. So it's over.
Dan: I'm sort of... journalist.
Alice: What sort?
Dan: I write obituaries.
Alice: Who was your last boyfriend?
Anna: My husband.
Alice: Was he English?
Anna: Very.
Anna: I don't kiss strange men.
Dan: Neither do I.
Dan: So, he's a dermatologist. Can you get more boring than that?
Anna: Obituarist?
Dan: Failed novelist, please.
Larry: A princess can kiss a toad.
Alice: Frog.
Larry: Toad.
Alice: Frog.
Larry: Toad. Frog. Lobster. They're all the same.
Dan: I've got to see you.
Anna: Tough.
Dan: You... kissed me!
Anna: What are you - TWELVE?
Dan: What's so great about the truth? Try lying for a change, it's the currency of the world.
Dan: Do you have any children?
Anna: No.
Dan: Would you like some?
Anna: Yes, but not today.
Dan: Everybody wants to be happy.
Larry: Depressives don't. They want to be unhappy to confirm they're depressed. If they were happy they couldn't be depressed anymore. They'd have to go out into the world and live. Which can be depressing.
Dan: You've ruined my life.
Anna: You'll get over it.
Larry: I'm Larry, the doctor.
Anna: Hello, Doctor Larry.
Larry: Feel free to call me The Sultan.
Dan: Didn't fancy my sandwiches?
Alice: Don't eat fish.
Dan: Why not?
Alice: Fish [urinate] in the sea.
Dan: So do children.
Alice: Don't eat children either.
Dan: I fell in love with her, Alice.
Alice: Oh, as if you had no choice? There's a moment, there's always a moment, I can do this, I can give into this, or I can resist it, and I don't know when your moment was, but I bet there was one!
Soundtrack Review
-
The music by Damien Rice were awesome enough that I went out and bought his CD, 'O'. The opera stuff isn't really my cuppa tea though.
If you liked this movie, try these:
This review page was last updated on 5.14.05
MRFH Home . Reviews . Findaflik . Features! . MRFH Forum
© 2005 Mutant Reviewers From Hell (Original Content). All Rights Reserved.
