Not since Tom Green's "Freddy Got Fingered" has a film captured the repugnance of human behavior as well as "Closer." No, Julia Roberts wasn't filmed sucking a cow's udder. Instead, she and her fellow cast mates are entangled in a hot and sweaty orgy of lies, deceit and infidelity that captures the darkest sides of humanity.
Director Mike Nichols, a sage of our society's masochistic cravings for love and sex, has extensively explored the realm of human debasement in past films. Movies like "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" "The Graduate," and "Carnal Knowledge" all showcase similar tableaus of human weakness. "Closer" is his latest project, and it delves into the sickening psyche of humanity.
The plot intertwines around four characters. Dan, played by Jude Law ("Alfie"), is an obituary writer and a struggling novelist who meets Alice, a former stripper, played by Natalie Portman ("Garden State"). As their eyes meet for the first time amongst a crowd of Londoners while walking along a busy sidewalk, Damien Rice's romantic ballad "The Blower's Daughter" hums in the background. It's a classic cinematic scene of love at first sight. But Alice, a New Yorker, is unaccustomed to England's traffic patterns and gets plowed over by the British equivalent of a Buick.
Love hurts.
Alice survives the accident and she and Dan become a couple. The story then fast-forwards a year, when Dan has published his first novel about Alice, who has been his loving girlfriend since the accident. However, a wrench is thrown into their relationship when Dan is getting his picture taken for his book by a photographer, Anna, played by Julia Roberts ("Erin Brockovich").
Dan, though remaining faithful to Alice, falls in love with Anna during the photo shoot. Anna feels the same about Dan, but won't go any further because he's already in a relationship.
But Dan remains obsessed with Anna. To quell his infatuation with Anna, he peculiarly poses as her and has cyber sex with anonymous males, one of which is Larry, a dermatologist, played by Clive Owen, ("King Arthur"). Larry wants to meet this Anna who has, as Dan described, blonde hair and "epic t--s." Larry meets the unsuspecting and confused Anna at the local aquarium where they instantly fall in love.
But with every romance, there is a tragedy. With the tragic flaw in each of the four characters sits the weakness of human nature. It's lust, jealousy and deceit that are imprinted on the species' genetic code. And these characters don't hesitate to give in to their primal urges.
Anna and Dan, though happy in their relationships, feel deprived of "what they can't have." They commence an affair with one another and convince themselves that dumping their loved ones and getting together is the only imaginable form of happiness. But it's all self-induced drama.
Their decision to cheat is part of a cycle made up of two of life's polar opposites: happiness and sadness. They want "what they can't have" but once they have it, they miss what they had before. They then covet their former life and lover and spin the cycle again. Disturbing yes, but Nichols captures humans' hamartia with complete clarity.
Although there are no sex scenes, there's enough dirty talk and f-bombs to have the elderly and more conservative filmgoers flocking to the exit doors in droves less than halfway through the flick. The debauchery between the characters and their lack of faithfulness to one another is just plain nauseating. The revolting emotions evoked are made all the more real by the authenticity of the stellar cast and each role is worthy of vast acclaim, perhaps even Oscar nomination.
The dialogue and emotion expressed by the actors give the film a sense of reality. In fact, the only thing fictional is the prospect of cheating on Natalie Portman. Let's face it. No sane man would cheat on that woman.
"Closer" leaves the moviegoer with a pain similar to that left by Darren Aronofsky's "Requiem for a Dream." Although this can be criticized as its downfall, the film must be commended for its very ability to make the audience feel uncomfortable and offended. It gives the viewer the occasion to understand the depravity of the human condition and it explains that although humans may be logical beings, our actions are often completely incongruous with sensibility. Like Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut," "Closer" exposes the frailty and backwardness of the human psyche as so few movies can.
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
