Sunday, January 30, 2005
Closer (2004)
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The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Finding Neverland
The Aviator
*Warning* The following analysis contains a discussion of the entire film, including the ending.
Director: Mike Nichols
Closer is a mean-spirited, vicious, and ugly love story. Love story? It is as if Mike Nichols has taken the sunny fantasy that is the typical movie love story and turn it inside out, exposing all that is loathsome and sordid in human relationships.
Conversely, the cinematography is stunning and beautiful, and mirrors the claustrophobic boundaries of the plot. It feels as if the camera’s landscape is almost exclusively tight-framed shots of the four character’s faces. In the way Hitchcock would work within sever, self-imposed restricted landscapes (a lifeboat (Lifeboat), a courtyard (Rear Window)) Nichols self-imposed limitation is his casts’ expressions, never venturing far from each face. And it works spectacularly. His cinematic method is mirrored by Julie Roberts’ character, Anna’s, photographic portrait style. Anna creates tight framed, large-scale portraits of faces in various expressions of pain. And in Closer it seems if you stopped the film from rolling each minute you could extract another gorgeous still portrait from the frame to hang along side Anna’s work.
As far as the story, it is a script with boundaries as tight as the cinematography. I cannot think of a line spoken in the film by anyone but the 4 characters involved in these ugly, criss-crossing relationships. It is hard to recall even another human entering a frame of this film. Closer is a nasty, claustrophobic, four-way character study, with each character given equal weight. The four characters, who all meet in various ways and all by chance, betray each other with the others over the course of the film. Jude Law’s Dan ends up the most broken character by the film’s end, having lost both women to Clive Owen’s Larry. Larry, who refers to himself as a simplistic and caveman (both true), comes out on top of the power struggle. Larry is also the most reviled character having destroyed both Anna and Dan by the film’s end with his vicious, vengeful control. Anna is the weakest character, referred to a number of times as a coward. Easily manipulated by Larry, Anna succumbs as Larry possession. She is deeply unhappy, but unable to fight against Larry’s relentless will.
Portman’s Alice is the least damaged by the events in the film, perhaps because of her youth. (Alice is 24 by the end of the film’s 4-year time span.) Alice alone is able to escape. In the final scenes Alice frees herself of all emotional ties to Dan and physically escapes back to New York. The final scene showing Alice walking confidently down Time’s Square is a powerful image of strength, and more importantly personal reinvention. New York, of course, is the symbol of personal freedom, the city to which countless people have fled to forget the past and emerge a self-invented new person. And if there was ever a situation someone would like to scrub herself clean from, it is the grime of this film. The fact that we find out in the next to last scene that she was living a lie in London under a made up name makes her rebirth in New York all the more complete, and the break from this past all the more clean. Conversely, the three characters that did not escape seem all the more trapped and destroyed.
Uniquely, Nichols has no main character, no sympathetic point of view to serve as a lens into the films. Additionally, the most despicable character, Larry, does not meet his dramatic justice, but instead has assumed power over Anna, and has left Dan damaged and alone. Neither devise is extraordinary in itself; however, such devises are more common in crime films, and Closer, if told traditionally, would be romantic comedy (here, a romantic comedy told with the sensibility of Reservoir Dogs). It is as if Nicholas is getting his own vengeance against the typical saccharine, Hollywood love story, showing an amount of sordid darkness equal to the standard amount of romantic sunshine.
At this point I must put Closer to my test for disturbing stories: Is the film’s importance, intelligence, artistry, acting (or some other feature) fine enough to justify the horrid subject matter? For my money the answer is yes, and I have surprised myself by the answer. The most compelling reason to see this film is the artistry. The claustrophobic limitations of the story (the four human characters) and cinemagraphic limitations of landscape (the four human faces), the stark, vulnerable performances, all are stunning and worthy of viewing.
Should you see it? Yes, but with the warning of the ugliness found within its fames.
Story Synopsis:
The film begins sweetly enough with Jude Law’s character and Natalie Portman’s character making eyes at one another as they walk toward each other on the streets of London. Portman, not aware, steps into the street and is hit by a taxi. Law takes her to the hospitable and their relationship begins, by chance. We see them walking together after they leave the hospital talking with that sweet banter of those who have just met and are interested in one another. We learn Law is an obituary writer after a failed attempted at fiction. Portman was a stripper in America and had to leave for some undisclosed reason.
There is a cut and a year has passed. Law and Portman are living together. Law is having a book published based on Portman’s unconventional and amazing young life. While having his photo for the book jacket taken by Julia Roberts’ character, a portrait photographer and photographic artist, Law lets Roberts know he is attracted to her. Roberts turns him down even after they kiss saying she is not a thief, referring to his relationship with Alice, which she has read about in his book. Roberts takes a stunning photograph of Portman when she confronts Roberts that she knows of Law’s advance.
Another cut and 6 months have gone by. Law and Roberts meet again at her photography art opening featuring Portman’s portrait. Law is still actively pursuing Roberts. But she too now has a relationship with Clive Owen’s character. Owen met Roberts (by chance) after chatting on-line with Law who pretends he was a women setting up a sexual encounter. They were to meet at the aquarium. Owen mistakes Roberts for the supposed woman on-line, and they begin a relationship. At the art gallery both Portman and Owen can see there is attraction between Roberts and Law.
Another cut, another year has gone by. Law and Roberts have been cheating together since the art opening, except for a brief moment when Roberts stopped it to marry Owen. But she could not stay away from her relationship with Law. This segment of the film opens with Law and Roberts confronting Owen and Portman to say they are leaving. Both are devastated by the admission of betrayal. Owen, at his most unnerving and loathsome wants to hear all the sexual details of Roberts' affair with Law.
Another cut, 4 months have gone by. Roberts is meeting Law at the opera after having met Owen to sign divorce papers. Law instantly realizes they have had sex, and the details of the encounter are loathsome. Owen, who has been hounding Roberts continually since she left him, promises to never bother her again and give her the divorce if she sleeps with him once more. We suddenly see Owen’s viciousness in full force. He is a wild animal attacking the weak prey that is Roberts, weakened further by her guilt of having cheated on Owen. Further, Owen is using sex as a calculated weapon of vengeance to destroy Law. Owen knows Roberts’ relationship and Law himself will never recover.
In the last cut we jump probably a few weeks. Law is confronting Owen telling him to let Roberts go, that she does not love him. This is true and Owen knows it, but Owen is in full caveman mode and he wants Roberts as a possession, not caring about love. He is also out to destroy Law. And after seemingly taking pity on Law and telling him where to find Portman, he throws the final barb: he has slept with Portman one evening months backs after (by chance) going into a strip club where she was working. He tells Law out of pure hateful vengeance, so he may destroy any chance of Law renewing his relationship with Portman.
It works. Law eventually confronts Portman making her tell him that she did sleep with Owen that night. Portman knows that this ugliness will always be between them and takes flight back to New York, at which point we get the marvelous slow-motion seen of her walking Time’s Square - her beauty and confidence turning heads. Portman will be fine. The rest are stuck in their own filth.
