Closer(2004)

I still don’t get what this movie was completely about.

I spent some time last night trying to look it up online. This is set in London England and stars Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, and Clive Owen, and is about love, intimacy, and the lies that always seem to swirl in the midst of the other two.

Jude Law and Natalie Portman fall in love early on in the movie, but then Jude meets Julia Roberts and falls for her. Thinking about her, and playing a bizarre joke on her, Jude hops into a sex chat room and plays with a guy’s head and sends him to meet Julia at the Aquarium. Julia falls for this guy and they get married.

But then Jude still has an affair with Julia, and on and on. There is backstabbing, and there is partner swapping, all except for Natalie Portman. After Jude dumps her she goes back to stripping in London. The movie was extremely sexually explicit, so this is not something I would recommend for a younger audience.

I didn’t care for the dialogue. All of it was witty between the four characters, and seemed a little too rehearsed, like none of them were dumb enough to speak like normal people. There were huge time lapses, like years, when a scene would open which wasn’t a bad thing, just a interesting quality of this movie. And now that I am moving towards things I liked about the movie…

I liked that I left the theater with a little bit of a “What in the name of Petey the Pirate?” There were some underlying themes about lying that were interesting, in particular a line by Natalie Portman that was something to the extent, “Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking off her clothes, But it’s so much more fun if you do.” The whole movie the partners are telling each other, or figuring out about their affairs. By telling this truth they hope to find intimacy, when in fact, it is just the opposite. The intimacy is ruined as soon as truth comes out.

Which is what happened in the end. Jude wants to know if Natalie slept with Clive. She denies it vehemently, but as soon as he makes an ultimatum if she doesn’t tell the truth, he realizes that it is over between the two of them. He comes to her and she tells him the truth, and says she doesn’t love him anymore. In the end of the movie we find out that she lied about her name all along, and that she didn’t need truth to find true intimacy.

So, if you like strange movies and stars, you might want to see this. But the sexual language will put you off if you are reserved at all, and the somewhat non traditional method of telling a story. I would have given it more stars if it was just a touch more entertaining.

Here are some similar arcade posts

• Beyond Borders (2003)
• The Wedding Date (2005)
• Garden State (2004)
• V is for Vendetta (2006)
• Inside Man (2006)

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