Smart-but-ineffectual journalist Dan "We use euphemisms!" cannot decide between his girlfriend, loving-but-clingy waitress Alice, or his lover cold-but-intellectual photographer Anna; herself indecisive between Dan and honest-but-thuggish "You're bloody gorgeous!" doctor Larry. The film puts the four leading characters in a box and strips them apart.Written by
Anonymous
Love is an accident... waiting to happen. Desire is a stranger... you think you know. Intimacy is a lie... we tell ourselves. Truth is a game... you play to win. If you believe in love at first sight, you never stop looking. See more »
The photograph of an elderly couple which appears before Alice is photographed by Anna, and which appears also in Anna's exhibition, is a photograph of British philosophers Peter Geach and G. E. M. Anscombe. See more »
Goofs
At the strip club when Larry is in the Paradise Suite with Alice, he asks her if she has ever desired a customer. In one shot she is standing but in the next, she is kneeling on the platform. See more »
Because Closer is, in a way, like sneaking a peek behind the closed doors of people we know, or more so, like looking in a mirror when we are at our most base and humanly human, some people seem to be viscerally turned off by it, as is apparent by a few of its more negative reviews.
To me, the very fact that it opens the door to such "voyeurism", if you will, is part of its deep emotional appeal.
Who among us can say we have never been tempted to be lured away from what we believe is love, by what we momentarily believe to be love? In closer, however these moments go beyond temptation, into lies, deceit, infidelity, misery, painful truths, abandonment, tears and suffering. "Love", in Closer, is shown to be against everything we've been taught to believe it should be, such as: honest/truthful, enduring, constant ... and faithful.
In short, it is a rabidly anti-romantic film, where, unbelievably, somewhere within each of these broken, self-serving, selfish, emotionally-underdeveloped people, brilliantly played by Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Clive Ovens and Natalie Portman, we find beauty, and in the end, a deep satisfaction upon seeing that love of self can lead to release and rebirth.
It had been a while since I watched this, and I am happy to say that I loved it this time around as much as the first time I laid eyes on it. And isn't that the mark of real love? That it endures?
Closer, is one of my favorite films.
9.5
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Because Closer is, in a way, like sneaking a peek behind the closed doors of people we know, or more so, like looking in a mirror when we are at our most base and humanly human, some people seem to be viscerally turned off by it, as is apparent by a few of its more negative reviews.
To me, the very fact that it opens the door to such "voyeurism", if you will, is part of its deep emotional appeal.
Who among us can say we have never been tempted to be lured away from what we believe is love, by what we momentarily believe to be love? In closer, however these moments go beyond temptation, into lies, deceit, infidelity, misery, painful truths, abandonment, tears and suffering. "Love", in Closer, is shown to be against everything we've been taught to believe it should be, such as: honest/truthful, enduring, constant ... and faithful.
In short, it is a rabidly anti-romantic film, where, unbelievably, somewhere within each of these broken, self-serving, selfish, emotionally-underdeveloped people, brilliantly played by Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Clive Ovens and Natalie Portman, we find beauty, and in the end, a deep satisfaction upon seeing that love of self can lead to release and rebirth.
It had been a while since I watched this, and I am happy to say that I loved it this time around as much as the first time I laid eyes on it. And isn't that the mark of real love? That it endures?
Closer, is one of my favorite films.
9.5