CLOSER (R) ***1/2

 

Directed by Mike Nichols. 100 minutes.

Starring Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, and Clive Owen. Released by Columbia Pictures.

 

At the beginning of Closer, Dan (Jude Law) and Alice (Natalie Portman) share one of those moments that only occur in movies. They spot each other walking down the street in London, walking in slow motion to the beat of a slow song. She is not watching where she is going and is hit by a car. Anna (Julia Roberts) and Larry (Clive Owen) have a similar ‘meet cute,’ if that is what you can call it in this movie. Dan and Larry, who do not know one another, are having internet sex and Dan, the prankster, tells Larry to meet him at the aquarium, which is also the name of his first novel. The photographer at the photo shoot for the book is Anna. She rejects Dan and, in anger, he uses her name online. Anna and Larry accidentally meet and hijinks ensue. But make no mistake- Mike Nichols’ new film is not a romantic comedy, not at all. ‘Romantic’ is not a word that should be used, even jokingly, in describing Closer, an assaultive drama that plays as a career end piece to Nichols’ 1972 classic Carnal Knowledge. This film is ferocious, scathing, and sharp, but never romantic.

 

“Hello stranger,” says Alice to Dan after her brief accident. The same is said to Anna by Larry at an exhibition of Anna’s work, which is titled, that’s right, “Strangers.” Closer is a film about four loveless people who constantly convince themselves that they are capable of love; even loving each other now and then. Essentially, the four of them are strangers to one another and, at times, to themselves. Dan would rather be lied to than face a truth that is hurtful. Larry not only wants the truth, but savors every sordid detail. When people tell him something meant to hurt him, he thanks them for their honesty. Anna is indecisive. Alice wants to have the other hand, making sure that she is the one to walk out of a relationship, not the other way around.

 

I suppose that Larry is the Jack Nicholson character equivalent here to Carnal Knowledge and Jude Law is the indecisive Art Garfunkel equivalent. The difference here is that the film’s women are not bystanders; they are just as manipulative and shallow as the men here. We find out later that Alice is a stripper (not a twist) and that she uses her sexuality as a weapon, especially after she has been hurt. Larry is a self-described caveman- whom Anna slept with and why is much more important than if she actually has feelings for him. He cannot leave a score unsettled as well; take, for instance, the scene where he discusses the details of his relations with Anna and Alice in a scene in Larry’s dermatologist’s office.

 

The performances are strong here, especially Clive Owen, a forceful actor in films like Croupier and Gosford Park in the past, but a force of nature here. The actors are complemented with sharp dialogue that flies back and forth without missing a beat, especially in the scenes where Larry finds out that Anna has been deceiving him and presses her for it, when Dan and Larry meet in Larry’s office, and an extended, funny scene in which the two men talk dirty over the internet. Dan uses the scene to play mind games, rather than to actually derive pleasure; Larry returns the favor later in the aforementioned office scene.

 

Mike Nichols, after hitting big critically in the mid 1990s with Primary Colors and box office success with The Birdcage, he made a big mistake known as What Planet Are You From?, an inexplicable sex romp. Nichols took the road often traveled with artists in career trouble and headed for television, where he scored with a lovely adaptation of the play Wit, then a beautiful rendering of Angels in America, a six hour HBO behemoth that rivals anything released in theaters in recent years. Closer is Nichols again at his peak, a film that shows that the brilliant director who made The Graduate, Silkwood, and two other dysfunctional relationship classics- Carnal Knowledge and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?- still has something to say about the dangerous games people play with each other emotionally. Larry tells Dan that he understands nothing about the human heart. “It looks like a fist covered in blood,” he says. The fist that is Closer lands a solid punch, knocking the wind out of any other movie about human relationships in the age of insincerity that has seen the light of day in a long time.