I'm surprised there hasn't been a thread about this movie yet. I saw it today and thought it was good but not great. The thing that made good was the script and acting. The story had some flaws tho. The main song from it is very good and could probably get the best song oscar. Has anyone else seen this?

I saw it, and it sucks because I was so excited about it... I expected something so much better. Because of my expectations, in comparison, I hated the movie. The acting was really good, on the part of all four of the actors (even Julia Roberts, whom I cannot stand), but there was just so much I didn't like about it, on a plot level... I mean technically speaking, it was very well-made. Good cinematography, good direction, good acting, good sets, etc etc etc. But the plot and characters sucked.

For example:

I hated Jude Law's character; he was so needy and pathetic. He was like a little kid, basically. (By the way, I think I'm the only woman in the world who does not find Jude Law the least bit attractive... he looks like a girl, he's so damn pretty. I don't know why everyone thinks he's so sexy.)

Clive Owen's character grossed me out, he was SUCH a pervert. I actually love Clive Owen, he's the reason I saw the movie. And he acted it superbly... I mean for him to get me to be disgusted by his character, it takes a lot.

And then all around, I hate movies where you're supposed to feel bad for the characters, when really, throughout the movie, they're doing the stupidest things... Like in this one, you just wanna slap them and say, "Well, yeah, you CHEATED on her/him... what did you expect?!" It's like, don't even cry... suck it up and take responsibility for what you brought on yourself.

Anyway, and I think the moral of the story was that too much honesty in a relationship will tear it apart... that there needs to be a certain level of lying and secrecy in order for the relationship to work. Which is BOGUS. Here's a thought... if you don't cheat, then there's nothing to hide!!!
They're addressing the wrong problem-- the issue is not the brutal honesty, the issue is the cheating.

Anyway, enough of that soapbox. Long story short, I hated the plot and characters, loved everything else about the movie.

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I don't think so. The relationship between Alice (Portman) and Law's character didn't work. And you find out that in the end, they were just strangers. Alice wasn't even her name! And they were together for about four years! How's that for lying making a relationship work?

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I'm not saying it won't work... My point is that it's not necessary. It's better if you don't have anything to lie about in the first place. You know, keep yourself out of trouble, and you have nothing to cover up. As for Natalie Portman, you can fool anyone for as long a period of time as you want, if you're good. But I think that her lies were different from the truth/lies involved with the others' cheating, ya know?

If she had given him her real name at first and stuff, it wouldn't have made a difference in their relationship. I think the point of that part in the movie was to show that he never really had her the way he thought he did, that even though he thought he was "above" her and fooling her, she was doing her own fooling.

But beyond that, I mean about the cheating... If they hadn't all given each other so many details about their affairs, do you think they would have broken up in the end? I mean they were always pretty close to forgiving each other, until the reality of it hits them with the details, ya know? That's what I mean about them trying to make it seem like lying would have been the better option.

so the movie sucks

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I agree with you Letizia about the plot and characters. The thing I didn't like the most is that we never really see what is so special about Anna that makes Dan and Larry want her so bad and continue to fight over her. I agree that Julia Roberts acted well, we just never really saw what was so great about her tho. O well, hopefully this won't get nominated even tho I still see some critics saying it should be.

It's a toss between Million Dollar Baby and this tomorrow (or The Aviator). Expect a review (or at least feedback) once I do see this; my expectations are pretty high, but I'm trying my best to play it down a gear.

Mick

Why do people dislike a movie for having pathetic or perverted characters? Does everyone have great charisma in real life? :rolleyes:

Don V, they do in Hollywood!

Zia, I respect your opinion, but think you may have interpreted it in a way not intended by the director (not necessarily wrong).

My thoughts on what I consider one of the best films of 2004, after seeing it today:

Closer
2004, Mike Nichols, US

Closer. An ironic title for a film lacking emotional appeal. By the end of the film, each of the four main characters, though two are finally together (again), are as emotionally distant as they have been physically intimate during the course of the film. The tone throughout is cold, forlorn, bleak and detached.

The opening and final shots are fittingly in slow motion; as the bustling streets walk toward the camera, heads and bodies bob up and down. And indeed, these are the lives of our four characters: highs and lows, ups and downs, whatever you want to call it, but far from even. It also seems odd that it is in these shots and these shots only, where the characters have any kind of intimate contact with society. Even when two sit on a bus in the first scene, they are at the back and, in conversing with one another, have detached themselves from the rest of the commuters.

Contemporary London. Obituary writer Dan (Jude Law) meets New Yorker Alice (Natalie Portman) when the latter is knocked over in the street. When they form a relationship, Dan falls in love with photographer Anna (Julia Roberts), who soon falls in love with dermatologist Larry (Clive Owen). These four’s lives intertwine through the film in a completely absorbing study of sex, passion, trust and betrayal.

There is a distinct lack of connection between the viewer and the characters in Closer. As they struggle to hold onto each other for anything other than sex, each scene becomes more strained than the last, more distant, more desperate. Each of the four characters are given ample screen time, and all are drawn out with equal depth and contrasting roles to play. The transformations they unwittingly undertake are complex and profound, subtle and despairing, and equally unwitting are the audience, utterly absorbed as they watch the lives of these characters with grim fascination as they cleverly unfold.

A careful examination of not only physical intimacy (the only relationships in the film are strictly sexual, and love quickly becomes a cliché), but of truth and honesty, and how it affects the mind of someone and, perhaps more importantly, those around them. Apart from one instantly noticeable slice of bravura, where Dan asks Alice about her past and the bus passes under a bridge and plunges the whole scene into darkness, into the unknown, Nichols’ direction takes a stand back to observe the proceedings.

Instead, it is Patrick Marber, who adapted his own play of the same name, who is allowed to flourish and drive the film. The film relies heavily on conversation to conjure up its tone of yearning desperation, and Marber’s darkly witty script is filled with subtle irony, ferocious bursts of lust, and it drives the narrative from scene to scene with engrossing force. The narrative, about the interweaving lives of four very different people, ironically comprises a succession of disjointed scenes, each being detached from the next, with a considerable distance of time inbetween, just like the characters themselves.

Mick