Are humans meant to mate for life? What drives someone in a perfectly good relationship to cheat and risk losing the one that they love and that loves them? Is it possible to love more than one person at the same time? How well does anyone really know the one that they love? Directed by Mike Nichols (THE GRADUATE, BIRDCAGE, WORKING GIRL), CLOSER questions the nature of relationships and fidelity as it follows the tangled web created by Dan (Jude Law), Alice (Natalie Portman), Anna (Julia Roberts), and Larry (Clive Owen). Dan, a British writer of obituaries, and Alice, a young American stripper, meet in the film's opening scene when a London cab runs her down. Cut to a year later: Dan and Alice are now a couple, but he is suddenly smitten with Anna, a beautiful American photographer. In an ironic twist of fate, Anna meets Larry, a British doctor, and they are soon a couple, despite Dan's continuing obsession. But the entanglements don't end there, and ultimately, someone is sure to get hurt. The four players do justice to a script that is humorous, raw and disarmingly honest about adult relationships.
THEATRICAL RELEASE: DECEMBER 3, 2004 (LIMITED)
Review 1:
"The verbal intercourse that dominates that scene and every other in the film is vigorous, compulsive, sometimes painful and occasionally funny."
Source: New York Times
p.E1 12/0/3/2004
Review 2:
"All the actors do fine work, but Owen's quixotic and brooding quality is particularly effective here."
Source: USA Today
p.8E 12/03/2004
Review 3:
"[T]he haunting, hypnotic CLOSER vibrates with eroticism, bruising laughs and dynamite performances from four attractive actors doing decidedly unattractive things."
Source: Rolling Stone
p.189 12/09/2004
Review 4:
"The place, the costumes, the staging of sexual provocation and betrayal are refined studies in luxurious understatement."
Source: Entertainment Weekly
p.63-4 12/10/2004
Review 5:
"[Portman is] the film's most enigmatic character..."
Source: Film Comment
p.72 01/01/2005
Review 6:
"[T]his is an engrossing, anti-romantic movie about that bloody fist of an organ, the human heart."
Source: Uncut
p.99 02/01/2005
Review 7:
"They are all so very articulate, which is refreshing..."
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
p.27 12/03/2004
Review 8:
"[The performances] are strong and display a readiness to engage in the ugliness of the parts. Julia Roberts is refreshingly understated."
Source: Sight and Sound
p.45-7 02/01/2005
Review 9:
3 stars out of 5 -- "A faithful screen adaptation of Patrick Marber's play....It's witty and well performed..."
Source: Ultimate DVD
p.85 12/01/2007