CLOSER

CLOSER is a talky drama about two couples in London, one of whom gets married, who exchange sex partners. Julia Roberts stars as Anna, a professional photographer hired to take photos of a budding writer, Dan, played by Jude Law. Dan falls in lust with the beautiful Anna, even though he’s been living with Alyce, an ex-stripper from New York City played by Natalie Portman. Dan met Alyce a year ago on the street when a car knocked her down while they were staring at one another.

Anna refuses Dan’s affections when she learns that he’s with Alyce. In revenge, Dan goes on an Internet chat room for sex talk and sets up a potential rendezvous for Anna with a sex-starved doctor named Larry, played by Clive Owen.

A year later, at an exhibition of Anna’s work, Dan and Alyce finds out that Larry and Anna have become lovers. The two couples separately exchange witty repartee. Another year after that, Dan tells Alyce and Anna tells Larry that Dan and Anna have carried on an intermittent affair, even though Anna and Larry have gotten married. This secret leads to even more sexual twists and turns.

CLOSER, which is based on an acclaimed play, is a pretentious, misanthropic piece of boring trash. The plot twists and character arcs are unrealistic, unconvincing, talky, and lurid. This movie also contains a steady stream of graphic sex talk and obscenities. Someone should have taken a step back from the original material and asked whether the script really accomplishes what its admirers apparently think it does. Just because you throw in a few witty, clever or even profound lines doesn’t mean that you have put together a meaningful and/or sublime story about romantic love, lust and sex. Only a person with a warped aesthetic sense would like this script and this movie. Unfortunately, there are plenty of this kind of people floating around, including the 11 people primarily responsible for this work.