Closer

Attraction, infidelity, romance. When Patrick Marber’s Broadway success hit the stage, a writer advised it was not a good idea to go and see it with a loved one. Go with a friend instead. The same advice could be offered in relation to this film adaptation. It’s classy affair but don’t go with your loved one. If the distributors had wanted to be wicked, they could have opened this one right next to Valentine’s Day.

Jude Law plays an obituaries writer who in a chance meeting, falls for Nathalie Portman’s free-loving stripper. Going out with her, he then finds a secret moment to chat up Julia Roberts’ photographer before engaging with Clive Owen’s doctor, masquerading as a woman in an internet chat-room. Imaginatively filmed in London, there’s a lot of fun to be had spotting all the locations used. One of leading ones early on is the London Aquarium where a chance meeting brings together two of the four characters who previously have not met.

Much of Closer is taken up with these four, who is seeing who, who wants to have sex with who, and whether those being pursued will give in to temptation. Snappy dialogue and some great one-liners plus such a magnetic cast are all BIG pluses. Its reported that Portman was asked to do nude shots for director Nichols but at the final editing stage, she managed to persuade him to leave them on the cutting-room floor. Quite right on the whole – Portman happily manages to give off oceans of sex appeal without needing to reveal all. Sorry chaps, but even I had to reluctantly admit to myself that was true.

It’s not without some blips. Its been accused in some quarters of being a cold film and that the film doesn’t move away enough from its origins as a play. Firstly it appears cold simply because the characters in the way that they indulge in their love affairs are cold in approach. As to its framework as a play, Nichols is constantly moving it from one location to another so it does have a much greater sense of drive than some films converted from plays do.

Where it does seem manufactured is simply in the worlds they inhabit. Law seems to have a lot of time on his hands when he’s supposed to be a Press hack. Roberts somehow is able to stage a photographic exhibition out of what looks to be decidedly average photographs blown up to giant size to make them seem significant and Law is able to buy a lot of Portman’s time as a lap dancer when if she really was one, you imagine there would be a queue around the block for her services.

It’s easy though to play along with Marber’s essay on love when it’s being delivered by such a stellar cast in the hands of a class director in Mike Nichols. To cap it all, the songs of Damien Rice are on the soundtrack. If you’re into films about sexual entanglements and the nature of present-day affairs, make a date with this one as a cast providing eye candy for both sexes is just one of its attractions.

Matt Arnoldi