Closer (Superbit Edition)
by Mike Nichols
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Clive Owen, Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, Nick HobbsDirector: Mike Nichols
Brand: SONY PICTURES HOME ENT
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 104 minutes
Published: 2005-03-01
DVD Release Date: 2005-03-29
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Movie Reviews of Closer (Superbit Edition)
Movie Review: Closer
Summary: 5 Stars
It takes a lot of nerve to share a relationship with someone and then, without warning, throw it right back in their face. Emotions flare, terrible words are spoken, and attitudes become difficult to seeth, motivating both parties to take revenge on one another in some form. Unfolding events can be disastrous, and can sometimes involve other people who may or may not have motives of their own.
That is the electric energy of "Closer," a film so emotionally powerful but so painfully honest that it can polarize your reactions to it. It involves four attractive people who are unattractive on the inside. They are probably unaware of this, and when they all become submerged in a messy predicament, their inner selves are graphically revealed. They are darkly sadistic, articulate in their manners, and sufficient in animosity. These four individuals are normal, everyday people just like the rest of us. They have problems just like we do, and we are forced to remain entangled with their lives. Rarely does a film inadvertently use its characters for a long-lasting impact, and rarely does a movie connect so effortlessly with the audience.
Alice (Natalie Portman) and Daniel (Jude Law) lock eyes while walking towards each other on a London street. Alice, focused on putting her flirting skills to good use and still used to the fact that American traffic comes from the left, is hit by a taxi cab. When she comes to her senses a number of seconds later, having sustained a few cuts, she sees Daniel standing over her, smiles, and she says, "Hello, stranger."
A following sequence shows the two sitting in a hospital waiting room, riding on a bus, taking a stroll through a park, and chatting about who they are. Alice is a stripper, newly arrived in London, who fled New York City to escape a bad relationship. Daniel is a struggling novelist who writes obituaries, or "the Siberia of journalism." Alice says that she is into meeting new people and finding a new profession. They hit if off, roughly at first, and eventually move in together.
Time passes and Daniel has written a novel, and the main character of which is based on Alice. Enter Anna (Julia Roberts), an American photographer who says that she has an interest for taking pictures of strangers. Daniel introduces Anna and Alice to one another and they share a private conversation when Daniel leaves. "I'm not a thief," Anna assures Alice. But Alice knows, just as well as we do, that she is lying.
More time goes by. Daniel has, shall we say, an "Internet conversation" with Larry (Clive Owen), an opinionated dermatologist. Posing as Anna, Daniel sets up a date between Larry and Anna. Coincidently, Anna is at Daniel's proposed meeting place at the appointed time, and after moving past an embarassingly awkward meeting, Larry and Anna manage to develop a romantic connection. This is a trick that Daniel will soon regret, because Larry is a man who is so confident with his emotions that he feels inclined to judge the inequities of others.
The two couples are cross-introduced. The events that follow and how they effect each individual should only be hinted at, not thoroughly discussed. But watching the film is to be burdened with a few underlying questions. Do these characters actually love their partners, or are they using one another to satisfy their carnal lusts? And the biggest question, of course, is why? Why do they do the things that they do to each other?
But see, I like movies that make me think like this. I like to absorb a movie and draw ideas out its context. "Closer" is bold work. Hinging solely on the issue on relationship infidelity, it artistically examines the presence--or absence--of love and honesty in relationships. The film runs so deep that the love rectangle becomes trivial; the film is really about who these people are and what they are capable of.
The film, set over a four year period, is a sequence of the characters meeting each other in pairs and weaving their ways in and out of each other's emotions (the exchange between Larry and Anna at their house wins my award for the most painful scene of the year). All of them are perfectly written and emotionally sincere, but my absolute favorite is the scene between Larry and Daniel towards the end of the film. The two men are polar emotional opposites: Larry is an aggressive, firey-tempered hothead and Daniel is passive and meek. This exchange is like a Tyco truck going up against a tank; there is no way that Daniel can arise victorious. But notice how quickly the two men seem to calm down. After witnessing everything that has come before, and the one scene that comes after, we realize that each man is perfectly capable of sustaining the other's personality.
Roberts, Law, Portman, and Owen deliver spellbinding performances, and detailing their actions will spoil the whole movie. Let's just say that the ones who appear to be the sheep turn out to be the wolves. The film is ironic in the sense that its problem forces the characters to simultaneously bring about their worst qualities and their best. They are equipped with hidden motives, dirty secrets, and lies, and they all seem to take pleasure in what they do to one another. Its as if they are four different superpower nations aiming nuclear weapons at each other, waiting for a missile to fire so they can set off a domino effect.
What the movie fails to do--and I say this in admiration--is force us to pick sides. Yes we are involved with the characters, but the film does not supply us with a particular one to cheer for. We love all four of them but we don't love all four of them. They are evil people, but since we recognize them as humans, we relate to them. This is a paradox that deprives the movie of typical methods and empowers it with intellect. It even causes the movie to walk a thin line between romance and psychological drama.
The destinies of the four people I will not reveal, but "Closer" has a solution that is uplifting, heartbreaking, and bittersweet in three different areas of thought. In the end, we also wonder if the characters make the right decisions. This is a movie that demands much out of the audience, and it even requires us to analyze ourselves as people.
After seeing the movie, I paced around the outside of the theater for about fifteen minutes, reflecting on what I had just witnessed. "Closer" is a thinker's movie. It implanted an impact on me that I will not soon forget. The movie doesn't just stop when the story ends; it continues to resonate long after the end credits role, and, in reference to the title, it pulls the audience closer.
NOTE: I also took a few moments to study the film's poster in the theater lobby, and I noticed something about the faces of the characters. If you do what I did and concentrate hard on the positioning of their expressions and how they are presented, you will be able to tell who I think the real "villain" is. But then again, I might be thinking too hard. - Isaac
Rated R; 102 minutes; Directed by Mike Nichols
Summary of Closer (Superbit Edition)
The Superbit titles utilize a special high bit rate digital encoding process which optimizes video quality while offering a choice of both DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. These titles have been produced by a team of Sony Pictures Digital Studios video, sound and mastering engineers and comes housed in a special package complete with a 4 page booklet that contains technical information on the Superbit process. By reallocating space on the disc normally used for value-added content, Superbit DVDs can be encoded at double their normal bit rate while maintaining full compatibility with the DVD video format.Four extremely beautiful people do extremely horrible things to one another in Closer, Mike Nichols' pungent adaptation of Patrick Marber's play that easily marks the Oscar-winning director's best work in years. Anna (Julia Roberts) is a photographer who specializes in portraits of strangers; Dan (Jude Law) is an obituary writer struggling to become a novelist; Alice (Natalie Portman) is an American stripper freshly arrived in London after a bad relationship; and Larry (Clive Owen) is a dermatologist who finds love under the most unlikely of circumstances. When their paths cross it's a dizzying supernova of emotions, as Nichols and Marber adroitly construct various scenes out of their lives that pair them again and again in various permutations of passion, heartbreak, anger, sadness, vengeance, pleading, deception, and most importantly, brutal honesty. It's only until you're more than halfway through the movie that you'll have to ask yourself exactly why you are watching such a beautifully tragic tale, as Closer is basically the ickiest, grossest, most dysfunctional parts of all your past relationships strung together into one movie. Ultimately, it falls to the four actors to draw you deeper into the story; all succeed relatively, but it's Law and Owen whose characters will cut you to the quick. Law proves that yet again he's most adept at playing charming, amoral bastards with manipulative streaks, and Owen is nothing short of brilliant as the character most turned on by the energy inherent in destructive relationships--whether he's on the giving or receiving end. --Mark Englehart
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