The grass is NOT always greener on the other side. In fact, sometimes you're better with the grass you have, it may be full of those prickly weeds and some bare patches, but at least it's your grass that you know you can count on.
That is the lesson of Closer, starring Jude Law, Clive Owen, Julia Roberts and Natalie Portman: four people entangled in a web of lust, deceit, mistrust and the pursuit of love.
Clive Owen and Natalie Portman were both nominated for their supporting roles in this film and rightfully so - they excelled in their roles. Julia and Jude, not so much. It's not that they didn't show up, say their lines and perform as actors, they just seemed to not feel comfortable in their roles - Julia seemed hollow and worn and Jude seemed kind of sleepy and bored. This dragged down the film immensely.
Portman plays Alice, a free-spirited stripper escaping to London from an abusive boyfriend. Beguiled by her beauty is Daniel (played by Law), an obituriarist with higher ambitions for his writing. After a near miss with a cab, Daniel and Alice are inextricably linked to one another, her the needy muse to his stable, but uninspired writer.
The movie has an annoying habit of slipping forward in time with zero segue, leaving the viewer puzzle bits and pieces of the story together in a haphazard and distracting way. Not my favorite movie-making technique, but it certainly saves the plot line time.
Through his relationship with Alice, Daniel finally is able to write something other than death notices: a book based on the life of Alice. During a photoshoot for the book, he meets Anna (played by Julia), a divorced and successful photographer. In a scene that is supposed to imply the instant attraction between Daniel and Anna, the two "strangers" act more like old lovers - sharing an intimate kiss, which they both soon realize has complicated their otherwise, ho-hum lives.
This is really where it goes south: Julia and Jude are just not good together. I've seen two wet sticks give off more sparks than these two.
Enter Alice, literally who is just around the corner from the shoot and intervenes on the spark that has just been lit between Daniel, the pursuer, and Anna, the not-so-convincing object of his affection. I am not sure what it is with Julia, but she has zero charisma in this film.
Article comments
1 - Barry
I totally agree with your commendation of Natalie Portman in this movie: she turned out to be the only worthwhile aspect of it for me, with the ability to convincingly portray a number of characters and moods. She does fragile wonderfully, but in a way, was even better when she was in the strip joint, where Larry was trying to get something "real" from her. She gave him something real, but dead-panned it the whole way so that he never believed her. Great!
Apart from that, however, I didn't enjoy enough in the movie to write a proper review of it - your account of Jude and Julia is spot on, so that I could never feel any kind of engagement with their stories.
2 - Quack Corleone
I liked Larry. He was honest. Hated Alice, though. And I agree with your points about the acting on the part of Law and Roberts. But I think it's criminal to review 'Closer' and not mention the dialogue! Some of the exchanges were so venomous, acidic, funny, and spot on that I must have overlooked most of the film's bad points, because I thoroughly enjoyed it.
3 - Eric Olsen
good job Dawn, I didn't find anything funny about the movie, which seemed a dispiriting mess, with Law and Roberts barely there, Portman fine in an enigmatic role, and Owen convincing in a really loathsome character.
If I had found it funny, black humor to be sure, that would have made a huge difference. I just don't get the point of the whole excruciating thing and can't imagine it was any better in play form because the only thing that kept me involved at all was some of the imagery and overall look, which would have been impossible to convey on stage.
4 - Dawn
I was actually going to put in a couple of lines from each character, but the review was so difficult to write that by the end I had lost steam and just wanted it finished.
The dialogue and the story were compelling, I just think that Law and Roberts fucked it up so bad that it really ruined the potential. And I like both as actors, just not in this film.
Thanks for both of your comments.