Closer

Language: English
Runtime: 104 mins
Release Date: 14/01/2005
Dir: Mike Nichols
Certification:

This film will make an impact on you. It didn�t hit me straight away - I left the cinema feeling quite dazed as I tried to get to grips with what I had just seen and work out how I felt about it. However, this was followed by a sudden rush of thoughts, questions and emotions that came so thickly and so quickly that I was completely overwhelmed. Closer is an emotionally exhausting and confusing experience. It focuses entirely on the relationships between four characters- Dan (Jude Law) and his girlfriend Alice (Natalie Portman) and Larry (Clive Owen) and wife Anna (Julia Roberts) as they sleep with each other, betray each other, and generally destroy each other in the name of love.
I think it is fair to say that the general representation of love is not a positive one! But the characters do not cynically exploit love as I was expecting them to do - quite the opposite in fact. What makes this film so powerful is that the characters seem so helpless, so at the mercy of their desire. They really are passionately in love at times, and paradoxically, it is this which makes them act so cruelly and so selfishly towards those that they love.
This is also a very intimate film. At some points it felt like the film was personally attacking my own values and beliefs. Watching it was an unnerving, almost intrusive experience. As a result, I think the film will affect people in very different ways, depending on how they react to it and relate it to their own lives.
If I had any criticisms, it would be that because all four characters are so intensely complicated, I felt I needed more time to get to know them all properly. The film was often overwhelming like this - there were a number of times when I wanted to pause and reflect, but the film carried on at the same pace, leaving me struggling to keep up.
Despite this, Closer remains a fascinating and poignant study of human behaviour in relationships, and is easily the best film I�ve seen since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. All the actors are superb and it manages to be very witty and frequently funny - both in a cruel, almost sadistic manner, but also, at times, in a very loving and tender way. I recommend that everyone goes to see this film! It will be painful at times, overwhelming at others, but all the time an extremely powerful and moving experience.

- Ben

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