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Closer Reviews

'People are filthy, they're not worth lifting a finger for.' Closer conveys this sentiment more powerfully than anything else.

Full Review | Feb 15, 2021

Clive Owen gives the deepest and most emotionally nuanced performance as a dermatologist desperate for love and loyalty, and Natalie Portman is a close second as the coy stripper beholden to Jude Law's self-centered, stalled writer.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 6, 2020

Closer's world is a gentle one, a place of kindness. It is these people who are bringing spite into it.

Full Review | Jan 18, 2020

Each frame of the film seems infused with vibrant life, even when the tone switches from dark to darker.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 5, 2019

For all its stunt casting and knee-jerk sexual frankness, Closer gives an underlying resonance to an emotional world that is normally the preserve of glossy soap operas.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 23, 2019

Closer takes the traditional notion of romance and attempts to batter it into submission, mostly through the constant application of swear words.

Full Review | Aug 24, 2017

The heart isn't a fist any more than the hand is a foot, and anyway there's no fist so tight that doesn't unfold into an open hand sometime. The movie is like a comedy someone dipped in a solvent.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Jun 4, 2014

Searing story of betrayal isn't for kids.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 22, 2010

Closer is no joke and it's got the brave, mature performances of an all-star cast to prove it. It's a movie in which characters feel each other up with their hands and knock each other down with words.

Full Review | Original Score: 74/100 | Jun 7, 2010

With a better script, Closer could have been compelling romantic drama; instead, it's little more than clichéd nonsense.

Full Review | Original Score: 34/100 | Sep 26, 2009

Nichols ... simply stuns with a beautiful production, excellent script, unconventional and rather hateful story, and excellent acting all around.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 29, 2009

Mike Nichols teases up a similar level of emotional dysfunction to "Carnal Knowledge" with a filmic rendition of Patrick Marber's stage play about sexual one-ups-man-ship.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Apr 18, 2009

Like dramas by Pinter and others, what seems trenchant and perfectly pitched in the theater can come off as arch even when skillfully transferred to film.

Full Review | Mar 19, 2009

Four beautiful, despicable characters find everything but love in this borderline sadistic battle of words from Mike Nichols.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 27, 2007

It's only as good as its cast. Fortunately, it's a good cast.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jul 30, 2007

Marber looks at farcical giddiness with a hard-won sobriety.... Closer is a voguish farce that, rather than making you wish you were like the characters, makes you wish that you hadn't been.

Full Review | May 28, 2007

click to read article [Greek]

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 31, 2006

Owen and Portman give excellent, committed performances, leaving Law and Roberts in the shade.

Full Review | Jun 24, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 1, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 11, 2006

Why Closer Still Matters Two Decades After Its Release

In the mid-2000s, when adult dramas still reigned supreme, director Mike Nichols decided to adapt another play. Back in 1966, he began his career as a Hollywood director with a critically acclaimed adaptation of Edward Albee ’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ?” In the time since, he had adapted multiple books, ranging from Charles Webb ’s “ The Graduate ” to the Carrie Fisher memoir “ Postcards from the Edge .” Throughout his filmography, Nichols has focused on performance over presentation, with character-driven stories and large amounts of dialogue. It’s no wonder, as he began in the theater and returned to his roots for his penultimate feature. “ Closer ” shares most of its DNA with “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and 1971’s “ Carnal Knowledge ” with a slightly more contemporary outlook on gender politics and a broader focus on love and the many forms it takes.

With “Closer,” Nichols crafts a romantic drama with a sharp sense of humor and a dark view of the world. It’s the story of four people who can’t seem to stop hurting each other. There’s Dan ( Jude Law ), the romantic writer who suffers from crippling jealousy. Larry ( Clive Owen ) is rugged and boorish, despite being a respected doctor. Anna ( Julia Roberts ) is a world-weary photographer who secretly craves romance. And then there’s Alice ( Natalie Portman ), a young stripper who lives for love and not much else. The story begins with her meet-cute with Dan, a perfectly cinematic moment that feels too good to be true: they see each other on the sidewalk, sharing their gaze until Alice walks into the street and gets hurt. When he runs over to check on her, Alice says: “Hello stranger.” Dan takes her to the hospital and their flirtation is immediate. Dan is handsome and charming but lives a solitary existence writing obituaries for the local paper, pining for a chance to write something more impressive. Alice has just arrived in the city after leaving a man.

A year later, Dan has written a novel about Alice’s life and Anna is taking his author photo for the book jacket. Anna is sophisticated and direct. Naturally, they flirt, even after Alice arrives. She goes to the bathroom, and Dan makes his move. He doesn’t know it but Alice hears everything. Another year passes and Dan still can’t stop thinking about Anna. In an odd move, he enters an online chatroom pretending to be her and meets Larry, a horny dermatologist who thinks Dan is the real thing. But, by chance, he and Anna have a meet-cute of their own and fall for each other. Months later, the two couples finally meet at Anna’s photo exhibition. Though they should be happy in their respective pairings, this event irrevocably changes both relationships, serving as a catalyst for the heartbreak and tears to follow.

Roberts and Portman play two distinct kinds of women—the age-appropriate career woman and the young, mysterious ingenue. Anna’s language is direct while Alice is more playful and coy, hiding how she really feels. The only thing Alice is direct about is her love and devotion to Dan. Anna doesn’t approach love as devotion, instead portraying it as a kind of responsibility. When she wavers, it’s like failing at a job. At her age, she knows that a relationship is work and the fairy tale is dangerous. Alice disagrees, finding safety in the lover’s journey. To Alice, reality is boring and colorless—it’s the period of mourning between the end of one relationship and the beginning of another one. For her, maybe that time only functions like an interlude.

It’s fascinating to think about Portman making “ Garden State ” and “Closer” in the same year, both codifying and subverting the “manic pixie dream girl” archetype. In the former, she’s quirky in ways that feel unnatural, as if written by someone who was trying to come up with the ideal woman and ended up with a woman-child, odd and inconsistent. But as Alice, Portman is playing a young woman who wants to be a fantasy. She chooses to live out a love story that’s grand and never-ending. When she meets Dan, she tells him her name is Alice (as in Wonderland) when it isn’t. She is a fantasy from the beginning. It was in that moment that she began the narrative of their love, the beautiful tale of Dan and Alice. We don’t know if she’s done this before, rehearsing her lines in the bathroom mirror and meticulously creating an image. Early on, she mentions that she recently left someone in New York. Arriving in London with the intent to fall in love, she finds Dan and is instantly smitten, maybe because he is captivated by her. With no other ambitions, she works as a waitress and lives as his muse. But soon enough the fantasy becomes too easy for Dan. His need to yearn for someone becomes overwhelming. With Anna, he reinvents himself as a man trapped in a fantasy looking for a way out.

In many ways, Anna is the antidote. Roberts plays her like a cold shower, constantly reminding Dan that they are not living in a fairytale and his reasons for pursuing her are not noble. Even when she meets him, she clocks his arrogance, but when they kiss she buries her head into his chest. She knows he’s a liar, but it’s a lie she’s never succumbed to before. It’s a fascinating role for Roberts to play after being America’s Sweetheart in the ’90s. Her performance in “Closer”—especially in the wake of her Oscar-winning turn in “ Erin Brockovich ”—feels like a turning point for Roberts. Here she transforms from the sweetheart to the world-weary woman, still beautiful, still charming, but no longer naive about love. Anna knows Alice is seen as a fantasy because that used to be her. Now, on the other side of it, she goes for Dan because she wants some of that old magic back. But it’s Alice who gives it to him. He doesn’t have it without her.

What does it mean that Alice knows what she’s doing? Portman plays the character as someone much smarter than she looks, but uninterested in other people knowing, still hiding who she really is. Like many women in their early 20s, Alice knows that she’s being judged and evaluated on everything from her clothes to the way she speaks. She takes that knowledge and tries to get ahead of it, play into it and master it. But does it make her happy? Is knowing the game enough of a reason to play it? And what does playing this part do for Alice? It clearly did something for Portman, whose best performances are all about diving into a role. From “Closer,” to “ Black Swan ” and “ Vox Lux ” to last year’s “May/December,” Portman has excelled at being an actress who knows she’s being watched and behaves accordingly.

Twenty years later, and “Closer” still feels current, despite—or perhaps because of—its basic gender politics. It’s a perfect distillation of romantic types, the risks of being known, and the most common barriers to happiness. The main thing that changes over time is who the viewer identifies with: The young lover? The adult woman, curious about the nature of romance? The romantic hero who is more controlling than he lets on? Or maybe it’s the practical man, the man who never wanted perfect romance to begin with? Or perhaps, at different moments in our lives, we’ve been each of them. Maybe we knew we were playing a part at the time, or only realized in hindsight. “Closer” understands that the truth is hard to come by and love rarely makes any sense at all.

Jourdain Searles

Jourdain Searles is a freelance film and culture writer with bylines in The Hollywood Reporter, New York Magazine, Sight & Sound, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, and Indiewire, among many other publications.

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Closer Review

14 Jan 2005

Mike Nichols has always been drawn to the mysteries of sexual entanglement as expressed in rich, theatrical dialogue. In Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, he stuck close to Edward Albee's play about a nastily complex two-couple evening; in Carnal Knowledge, he shot cartoonist Jules Feiffer's original script about two men and their contrasting attitudes to women over the decades.

Closer, scripted by Patrick Marber from his own play, could just have been a smart scrambling of these two earlier films. But it's far more than that, thanks to its fiercely distinctive voice and a powerhouse ensemble more than capable of holding its own against the much-lauded teams of Virginia Woolf (a film where the entire cast was Oscar-nominated) and Carnal Knowledge.

After the lightweight Lothario of Alfie, Jude Law's Dan is a much more involving character; restless and pathetic, sad and sadistic (his internet come-on to Clive Owen's Larry is horribly comic) and an always-crushed romantic. It's Law's best screen work to date, and he provides the anchor for awards-calibre scenes from Owen (who played Dan in the West End stage version) and an astoundingly sensual Portman (playing a pole-dancer and fulfilling the fantasies of too many sad Star Wars fans).

As for Roberts, if she's the palest of the quartet, it's because one of the most desirable women in the world invests her role with such a haunted chill you can't imagine Law leaving Portman for her or Owen being driven to such hilariously fiendish lengths to get her back. Nichols and Marber both have a background in comedy double acts, Nichols having exchanged neurotic barbs with former collaborator Elaine May and Marber having been Alan Partridge's all-purpose chat show guest. So Closer is a succession of tart two-hander sketches, strung together by wild sex and steady relationships, which skips over the months to see only the meet-cute and dissolve-ugly moments in the romantic square dance of these four people.

Movies | 30 09 2022

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Review: Mike Nichols 'Closer'

David Edelstein

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Closer, starring Jude Law and Natalie Portman, and directed by Mike Nichols.

Original Cynics

(Photo credit: Courtesy of Columbia Pictures)

The first time Jude Law’s Dan kisses Julia Roberts’s Anna in Closer , Roberts moves into their clinch with her eyes alert, as though searching her partner’s face for a desire equal to her character’s own. When the kiss is completed, Roberts pulls back and her eyes flutter once and glaze over just a little. In a few silent seconds, she’s conveyed Anna’s intense longing for a passion she’d all but given up on finding, and she’s almost literally stunned.

This is great movie-star acting, which I intend as a high compliment. For a celebrity as familiar as Roberts, it’s exceedingly difficult to surprise an audience, but I’ll bet you’re going to come away from Closer feeling you’ve seen sides of her talent she’s never been given the opportunity to reveal before now. Playing a shrewd, jaded photographer—the sort of artist who needs to use people as objects in her portraits and who turns herself off to them as people as well—Roberts denies us the sparkly glances and the endearing hoot of a laugh that have made her so winning in the past. As part of a vicious love quartet, she gives a ruthlessly spare performance that will rip at your heart if you’re willing to let her in there.

Yes, there are three other stars in Closer , directed by Mike Nichols and based on Patrick Marber’s hit play set primarily in London. There’s Law’s Dan, a self-pitying obituary writer; Clive Owen’s Larry, an arrogant physician; and Natalie Portman as Alice, a stripper who can convincingly refer to herself as a naïf. Marber’s play and his film adaptation of it have this foursome falling for each other in every combination except the homosexual one. The couples couple constantly, break up, and blurt things like “Men are crap” and “I love everything about you that hurts.”

Nichols is back, his instincts for intimacy as cutting as ever, to territory he mined in Carnal Knowledge and in another play turned movie, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? After the epic sprawl the director oversaw with last year’s Angels in America , Nichols takes a rootless, restless approach to predatory mating games. A mere change of scene can propel the drama months ahead in time, but we gather this only from a few stray lines of dialogue. It’s Nichols’s way of keeping us as off-kilter as his characters’ emotions are, yet the movie itself never wobbles or drifts the way oddball flops like What Planet Are You From? (2000) and Wolf (1994) did. The protagonists marry, divorce, cohabit, flee the country, or hunt each other down for one last mercy fornication—except that in Nichols and Marber’s cramped, damp universe, people are merciless and the fornicating is four-letter-word-humorless. There are bed scenes at once so wry and so despairing, they give new meaning to the phrase “dry humping.”

The minimalism of Marber’s dialogue and structure—there’s almost no one else in Closer except these four—certainly helps the director’s sleek rigor, but Nichols and his actors also redeem some of Marber’s occasionally stiff notions of conversation. Owen must muster all his frowsy, stubbled charm, for example, to toss off an aperçu such as “She has the moronic beauty of youth,” and I’m still not sure I wouldn’t just giggle if someone said that to me. Especially about Natalie Portman. Portman herself is wonderfully wounded and bitter. All that advance publicity about her randy men’s-club dancing scenes, how Nichols shot her nekkid but she doesn’t go-go all-nude here, just gets in the way of appreciating her true achievement: She’s angry and alluring even when she’s in nothing but a G-string and a pink wig.

As for the men, Law caps his ceaseless season of releases with the anti-Alfie: Law makes this guy’s desperate, vacillating love for both Anna and Alice the poignant dither of a sniveling conniver. Owen has a showier part than Law (Owen played Law’s part on the stage, so perhaps he knew better how to upstage his co-star), and his brute energy makes us enjoy nearly every one of Dr. Larry’s brash pronouncements about love and sex.

Closer is marred by some drippy music courtesy of Damien Rice and a small-surprise ending that feels like gimmicky irony. But the film’s core idea is compelling: The four lives that contort to become closer end up further apart, and in immense pain. The perpetual pursuit of love, when practiced by adults instead of adolescents, can lead to something worse than mere heartbreak: enduring heartache.

Hooray for Hollywood—um, Broadway . Closer is just the first of three plays to jump to the silver screen this winter. On December 24, John Madden’s adaptation of David Auburn’s Tony-winning Proof opens, with Gwyneth Paltrow reprising the part she played on the London stage (a role originated by Mary-Louise Parker): a genius mathematician’s grieving daughter . On the 22nd, Joel Schumacher opens Phantom of the Opera —the first big-screen version of the musical, though there have been many adaptations of the novel, including one that hilariously starred Nightmare on Elm Street ’s Robert Englund (Freddy) as the Phantom.

Closer Directed By Mike Nichols. Columbia Pictures. R.

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The Movie Review: 'Closer'

"Flawlessly lucid"; "viciously insightful"; "quietly devastating"; "emotionally honest and psychologically dense"; "dares speak the truth about modern adult relationships." Those are a few of the phrases that were used to describe the movie Closer when it arrived in theaters late last year. Oddly, as best as I can tell, the following terms were absent from discussion of the film: "ridiculous"; "unmoored from reality"; "emotionally preposterous"; "unintentionally hilarious."

Closer , released on video today, is not a bad movie--or rather it is not merely bad. It's flamboyantly bad, bad in a way that can't help but be fascinating and even entertaining. It's well-enough executed, boasting a couple of good performances and one great one, and it's pleasant to look at. But it's also aggressively, irretrievably silly, a potty-mouthed fantasy that somehow mistakes itself for a fearless excavation of the dark recesses of the human soul, American Pie as reimagined by Neil LaBute.

Adapted by Patrick Marber from his own play, Closer follows two London couples who meet, fall in love, fall out of love, swap partners, and swap back again, in the process wounding one another in all the ways of which human beings are capable. Scratch that: The wounding is all pretty much of a single variety, specifically, being unfaithful to your (presumed) loved one and then describing the infidelity to him or her in excruciating detail. If this sounds familiar, it's probably because similar territory was plowed just a few months earlier in We Don't Live Here Anymore , a movie that shared Closer 's ludicrous belief that displaying unremitting cruelty is somehow the same thing as telling the truth. (You can read my review here .) But if the characters in the former film seemed transplanted from another decade, the characters in Closer seem transplanted from another planet. It's not just that they behave irrationally (though they do), they behave according to no recognizable set of human principles.

Take Dan, played by Jude Law. When we first meet him at the beginning of the film, he's a sweet, bespectacled, romantically timid obituary writer (think Hugh Grant in Notting Hill ) who unexpectedly falls in love with a beautiful young American named Alice (Natalie Portman) after she is hit by a car. The movie then flashes forward one year. Dan has just completed a sexually provocative novel (unmentioned in the first scene) and is being photographed for the book jacket by another beautiful American, Anna (Julia Roberts). Gone are his glasses, and with them any sign of his earlier demeanor: He's now smooth and predatory (think Hugh Grant in Bridget Jones's Diary ), putting the moves on Anna despite the fact that he now lives with Alice, who will arrive at the studio to meet him at any moment. About the only thing these two Dans have in common is Jude Law's face.

Having stolen a kiss from Anna but otherwise had his advances rebuffed (for the time being at least), Dan decides to play an unpleasant trick on her. He goes into an anonymous sex chat room on the Internet, where he encounters a deviant dermatologist named Larry (Clive Owen). Pretending to be Anna, Dan engages Larry in an X-rated dialogue and proposes a sexual assignation at a location he knows the elusive lady to frequent.

Onstage, this scene was apparently a showstopper, with Dan and Larry's raunchy exchange projected on the wall behind them. Onscreen, shorn of this gimmick, it's a strong contender for the silliest scene in a "serious" movie in the last 25 years. I'll say this once: If you are a male over the age of ten who believes that beautiful women get online to earnestly tell strange men "I love COCK" and "sit on my face, fuckboy," then you should turn your computer off right now and never turn it on again. I mean it.

Larry, having failed to receive my exceptional advice, goes to meet Anna, and finds her somewhat taken aback when he refers to her as a "cum-hungry slut." Anna, intuiting that this was all a prank set up by Dan, decides to spend the afternoon with Larry. Why? Because it's her birthday, and what better way to spend it than with a stranger about whom she knows nothing other than that he frequents pornographic websites in search of rough, anonymous sex?

In no time--literally, the film having taken another of its leaps forward--Larry and Anna are a couple, hosting a museum exhibit of her photos. Dan and Alice show up, and the former again woos Anna, whose defenses appear to be weakening. By our next temporal jump, Anna and Dan have been secret lovers for a year, though she has not allowed this detail to keep her from marrying Larry in the interim. When Dan breaks news of the affair to Alice, she cries; when Anna breaks it to Larry, he demands that she describe the flavor of Dan's ejaculate. "Like yours," she answers, "only sweeter." (Poor Julia, she never had such a filthy mouth back when she played a prostitute.)

From this point, the characters will ping-pong back and forth across the behavioral spectrum, swapping turns as villains and victims, masters and slaves. The innocent will turn out to be jaded and the jaded revealed to be innocent. I'll leave the details to the curious, except to warn of a particularly laughable scene in which Larry encounters Alice at a strip club--did I fail to mention that lovely, sweet, decent Alice is also a stripper?--to swap heartbreak stories and some more graphic sex talk. "I love everything about you that hurts," Larry confesses, moments before demanding that she drop trou, turn around, and bend over, "for my viewing pleasure."

Such ostentatious melodrama may have worked on stage, where emotional fireworks are sometimes the price of reaching people in the back rows. But the up-close medium of film requires either more subdued, realistic portrayals or an explicit admission of theatricality. What Closer needed was a director who would take it in the latter direction, recognizing that it bore no resemblance to the reality of urban romance and embracing its B-movie sleaziness. What it got instead was Mike Nichols, a director whose sense of his own cinematic daring has now outlived said daring by a few decades. Although Closer benefits from Nichols's technical command--it is inarguably a "well-made" film--it is very nearly sunk by the same self-admiring earnestness he displayed with the HBO miniseries Angels in America , another corny, out-of-date project that mistook itself for cutting edge.

That Closer manages to stay afloat, at least some of the time, is a testament to its cast. As Dan, Law digs a little deeper than he did in his dozen-odd other 2004 performances, almost finding a thread that can tie together his character's alternating recessive and assertive selves. Roberts gives a low-key, committed performance as Anna, although at times it's unclear what she's committed to . While playwright Marber makes the motivations of his male characters all too evident--varying combinations of sexual desire, sexual jealousy, sexual neediness, and sexual one-upsmanship--he seems at a loss as to why his ladies do what they do, eventually settling for the catchall explanations that Anna is a "depressive" and Alice is an impulsively self-reinventing mystery woman. (His male-centric lens is evident in a Larry line that appeared in the trailer but not the film itself: "You women don't understand the territory. Because you are the territory.")

But the great pleasure of the film, the best if not only reason to see it, is Clive Owen. He alone seems to grasp his character's fundamental ridiculousness, and he throws himself into the role with carnivorous gusto. With his big head and big hands, Owen physically dominates every scene he is in. His Larry is by turns ferocious and tender, meek and mighty, a Noble Savage for the telecommunications age. For a while now, Owen has been talked about as a possible heir to the throne of James Bond--a role in which he'd be magnificent, if only the franchise weren't some forty years removed from making films worthy of him. While Closer may not have won him an Oscar last month, his nomination was a suitable announcement of his arrival as an actor.

For all the accolades, the same cannot be said of Natalie Portman, who is the one broken link in Closer 's sexual daisy chain. The failure is not entirely her fault: Alice, like Anna, is a character whose motivations are not only largely unknown but by design unknowable, a walking argument for the inscrutability of womanhood. Moreover, it's hard to shake the impression that whoever came up with the idea of casting luminous china-doll Portman in the role of world-weary stripper has never actually seen the inside of a gentleman's club.

But Portman's disappointment extends beyond the particulars of the role. Early in her career, when she played child characters ( The Professional , Beautiful Girls ), she seemed old beyond her years. But somehow as she's graduated to adult roles she seems ever more like a child, as though she's shrinking before our eyes. (When, early in Closer , she jokingly describes herself as a "waif," the comment strikes a little too close to the mark.) Portman's tiny stature and delicate features contribute to this impression, of course, but there's more to it than that. As her star has ascended she's seemed somehow less and less touched by real life. For a while it was possible to put this off on her turn as George Lucas's child-queen. But in Closer , as in Garden State (and even her small role in Cold Mountain ), there's something disconcertingly girlish about her. She's a little too unsure of herself and eager to please, like a politician's good-girl daughter who's clever enough to recognize she's been coddled but not selfish enough to feel she deserves it. If Portman is to grow as an actress she will have to indulge herself more, forego her tentativeness and decency, and take what she wants without apology.

Closer would have been well-served had it done the same. For a movie so ardently committed to pushing the envelope, it ends rather timidly. Selfishness and deceit are punished; generosity and truthfulness are rewarded, at least relatively speaking. The final dramatic act, the slapping of a woman whom we imagine has been slapped before, is treated as a shocking, unforgivable transgression--this, by a film that has spent the previous 90 minutes engineering vicious sexual betrayals and congratulating itself on its bleak vision of the world. At Anna's photography opening, Alice describes the pictures as "a lie ... a bunch of sad strangers photographed beautifully." Closer is that, and less: a lie that in the end doesn't even have the conviction of its own malice.

The Home Movies List: Cruel Endings

The Third Man (1949). The last scene--the empty road, the falling leaves, Joseph Cotton leaning against a fence as Alida Valli walks past--is among the most bleakly beautiful of all time. Incredibly, in Graham Greene's original script, it played the other way, with Valli taking Cotton's arm. Thank goodness director Carol Reed had the sense to see that this story couldn't possibly end happily.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). Have the story and the telling ever been more wonderfully at odds than in Jacques Demy's masterpiece , a jaded humanist fable filled with color and music? Like Reed, Demy was wise enough to know that the ending audiences wanted was not one he could give them.

Get Carter (1971). A lean, vicious little film starring Michael Caine as a hoodlum who seeks vengeance for his brother's death and finds a great deal of it. Intoxicatingly unpleasant.

Silence of the Lambs (1991). Unique in this list, in that the filmmakers seemed oddly oblivious to the bitterness of its conclusion. After all the earnest urgency with which Clarice Starling sought Buffalo Bill, we're meant to think it funny at the end that a far more frightening monster has escaped.

The Last Seduction (1994). Crueler even than the ending of the film is that Linda Fiorentino--who must have known, even then, that this was the role of her lifetime--was deemed ineligible for Oscar consideration thanks to the film's debut on HBO.

This post originally appeared at TNR.com

About the Author

Metacritic reviews

90 Time Richard Corliss Time Richard Corliss Funny, hurtful, splendidly acted.
88 Rolling Stone Peter Travers Rolling Stone Peter Travers Mike Nichols' haunting, hypnotic Closer vibrates with eroticism, bruising laughs and dynamite performances from four attractive actors doing decidedly unattractive things.
80 Newsweek Newsweek Here's a surprise: of the four actors in Closer, Clive Owen is the least famous, but he delivers the most memorable performance.
80 New York Magazine (Vulture) Ken Tucker New York Magazine (Vulture) Ken Tucker Closer is marred by some drippy music courtesy of Damien Rice and a small-surprise ending that feels like gimmicky irony. But the film's core idea is compelling.
80 The A.V. Club Scott Tobias The A.V. Club Scott Tobias Dramatically leaps through time, covering months or sometimes years in the span of a single cut. The effect is jarring and exhilarating, but it also bucks the common idea that relationships deepen over time.
80 Dallas Observer Bill Gallo Dallas Observer Bill Gallo Full of intellectual stimulation as well as low, dark pleasures--"Carnal Knowledge" redux!
70 Variety Todd McCarthy Variety Todd McCarthy The caustic wit and brute force of Patrick Marber's acclaimed play come across with a softened edge in Mike Nichols' bigscreen version of Closer.
70 Village Voice Dennis Lim Village Voice Dennis Lim Closer casts a smugly amused eye on the human capacity for betrayal. But because it also seeks to congratulate its audience for its urbane unshockability, it never strays beyond the limits of middlebrow complacency.
67 Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum The last thing Marber's quartet of modern miserables needs is to be admired; they are the very worst of average people, but on screen they have become the very best of the baddest.
50 The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt Determined to be faithful to the strong, often shocking language and in-your-face drama in Marber's mannered writing, Nichols and his actors find no way to lift Closer into a realm that enlightens.
See all 42 reviews on Metacritic.com
See all external reviews for Closer

Partners Who Cheat but Tell the Truth

By Caryn James

Dec. 8, 2004

In the romantic yet cynical new film "Closer," Anna admits to her lover, Dan, that she has cheated on him with Larry, her soon-to-be-ex-husband.

"We said we'd always tell each other the truth," she reminds Dan, who responds with bitterness and a burst of common sense: "What's so great about the truth? Try lying for a change -- it's the currency of the world." They are hardly the first couple to deal with love and betrayal, but with their agonized honesty they may be the most up to date.

Infidelity is one of the year's hottest topics, turning up on the network hit "Desperate Housewives," a Newsweek cover and an "Oprah" episode. But it's at the movies this season that we're best able to chart changing attitudes toward unfaithfulness, from the sexual revolution through its aftermath. The historical line begins with "Kinsey" and the crumbling of sexual secrecy in the 1940's and 50's, then moves through "Alfie," with its freewheeling 60's attitude (so unconvincingly transplanted to the present in the current remake). By the time we get to "Closer" and its four crisscrossing, endlessly cheating characters, monogamy has come to seem an impossible goal; the new ideal is honesty about infidelity.

"Closer" and "Kinsey," the hauntingly eloquent film about the pioneer of sexual research, may be the season's most astute films; and in both, the most wrenching scenes involve revelations of infidelity. When Kinsey (Liam Neeson) tells his wife, Mac (Laura Linney), that he has slept with one of his research assistants, she momentarily falls apart. She is not upset that the assistant is a man, but she is devastated by the betrayal.

She has been attracted to other men, she says, but has stayed faithful to their marriage vows, which her husband refers to as "social restraints."

"Did you ever think that those restraints keep people from hurting each other?" she asks.

But for Kinsey, truthfulness is more important than fidelity. Having carried so many other people's sexual secrets, he says, he can't bear to keep anything from his wife. His painful honesty doesn't resemble selfishness because Mr. Neeson so profoundly captures the character's complexity: his earnestness, the depth of his intellectual passion and the remnants of childhood repression.

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Closer (United States, 2004)

If you pay attention to Hollywood's romantic comedies, the interaction between men and women is all about love and companionship. If you instead rely upon the philosophy of Closer , it's all about power. Closer starts like a nice romantic drama, with a couple of "meet cutes" (as Roger Ebert calls them), then does a 180-degree turn and shows what happens when happily ever after rots from the inside out. It isn't just the relationships that curdle, but the characters. Their interaction becomes bitter and cynical. Sex is a tool used in power struggles and one-upsmanship games. Although the word "love" is mentioned a few times, it has little place in this movie, where emotions are weaknesses to be exploited by others. With Closer , director Mike Nichols and screenwriter Patrick Marber (translating his stage play) have ventured into Neil LaBute territory ( In the Company of Men, Your Friends and Neighbors ). For Nichols, this is not new terrain - he has visited here twice previously, in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Carnal Knowledge . Put those two older films together with Closer and you get a grim trilogy that doesn't have a lot of good things to say about the human condition.

On the surface, Closer is the story of two couples whose infidelities rip them apart. Dan (Jude Law) and Alice (Natalie Portman) meet on the streets of London when she is hit by a car and he comes to her rescue. He takes her to a hospital and the pair are soon living together. But Dan, an obituary writer who has penned a novel, finds himself obsessed with Anna (Julia Roberts), a photographer who takes the picture for his book jacket. He wants her, and tells her so, but she demurs when she learns he has a live-in girlfriend. "You're taken," she comments, as if that puts an end to things. Dan inadvertently introduces Larry (Clive Owen) to Anna when a practical joke (in which he pretends to be Anna in an Internet sex chat room) goes awry. The two start a romance, and are eventually married. But there's sexual chemistry between Dan and Anna, and, to a lesser extent, between Larry and Alice. Over the next four years (the film occasionally jumps forward by months in order to span that much time), infidelities occur, betrayals are discovered, and all manner of ugliness ensues. From a physical standpoint, Closer is not a violent film. From an emotional one, it's brutal. Nichols doesn't pull his punches. You leave the theater shaken.

The film is notable for its frank dialogue. There's plenty of profanity and also a host of interesting observations. (Although these characters speak with an erudition not found in conversations between real people.) Closer is talky, but in a smart way. You never feel that the characters are talking to hear their own words or to fill up screen time. Nevertheless, those unaware that the story began its life as a play will not be surprised to learn this fact. Yet the rawness of emotions keeps us from noticing how few sets there are, and how little conventional "action" occurs.

The film turns the tables on just about everyone. Users become victims, and vice versa. Innocence is corrupted, and corruption learns too late that there's no return path. Alice, who is arguably the most naïve member of the ensemble (despite being a stripper by profession), is hurt the most deeply, and that pain results in an irrevocable change. Larry, a decent guy when the film starts, turns into a cold, calculating man, having sex on at least two occasions to torment Dan. In the end, he wants to possess Anna not out of love, but because doing so means beating Dan. But to paint Dan as guiltless is unfair - he's a weasel (albeit a charming one) and an instigator. He cheats without concern for repercussions, then is astounded when any of them impact him. Anna is fundamentally weak and dishonest. She doles out and receives hurt in equal measures.

In Closer , the actors get a chance to shine, and no one is brighter than Clive Owen. Despite a number of memorable turns (and one big mistake: King Arthur ), Owen still lacks household recognition. A likely (and deserved) Oscar nomination for this performance will change that. The ferocity with which Owen delivers his lines, and the restless energy he imparts to Larry, electrifies every scene that he's in. Closer 's two most riveting sequences involve Owen and Natalie Portman - one in an art gallery where they first meet, and the other in a strip club where he has all the money but she has the power, and uses it.

Portman, in what has been called her first truly adult role (it's certainly nowhere close to Queen Amidala), is also very, very good. Like Owen, she must essay a character who undergoes a complete personality transformation - from vulnerable waif to ice queen seductress. There's a rawness and courage to her work (and, although there's no overt physical nudity due to camera placement, her scenes in the strip club are frank). The aforementioned scenes are Portman's highlights as well as Owen's, and she has one other - a heartbreaking moment in which she turns to the camera with tears on her face, and we recognize that the first piece of Alice's innocence has been stolen.

It would be unfair to describe either Julia Roberts' or Jude Law's performances as "lesser," but the two high-profile actors are not on the same level as their compatriots. Each has their moments, but neither captures the attention of the camera with the intensity of Owen or Portman. This is Roberts the actress, not Roberts the movie star (see Ocean's Twelve if you're craving for the latter), and her dedication to the role rather than glamour serves her well. Law is a little flat; I actually found him more convincing in Alfie .

Movies that look deeply into the human soul and uncover putrefaction are hard sells. But they are also some of the most fascinating films to be found. Are Nichols and Marber's characters too cynically drawn? Perhaps. Do they occasionally seem like marionettes manipulated by a clever writer? Yes. But those things don't diminish the film's compelling emotional qualities. Closer is powerful and disturbing stuff. It is not life-affirming, and it's not for those who want to leave a movie theater uplifted and convinced that fairy tale endings can happen. And this is most definitely not a date movie. But if you appreciate films that are more substance than style, that take challenges and don't follow formulas, and that feature Oscar-caliber performances, Closer is not to be missed.

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Is ‘Closer’ Actually Good or Are We Just Obsessed With Natalie Portman’s Pink Wig?

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The Big Picture

Closer flips traditional theater expectations on their head by pushing the boundaries with its cast of Hollywood stars.
The film delves into the shallow nature of intellectuals and reveals the performative aspects of modern relationships.
Chance encounters in Closer lead to heartbreak and tragic irony, making it difficult not to empathize with the flawed characters.

Generally, film adaptations of iconic works of theater are thought to be old-fashioned, stately dramas with eloquent monologues that have been performed for generations, but anyone expecting something that traditional was in for a shock if they saw Closer . The 2004 drama from legendary filmmaker Mike Nichols took inspiration from Patrick Marber ’s hit 1997 play of the same name and featured some of Hollywood’s finest actors spouting inflammatory, filthy remarks that might even make Quentin Tarantino blush. It’s an outrageous take on the notion of “intellectual society,” and it certainly attracted tabloid attention due to an extended sequence where Natalie Portman performs a striptease while wearing a pink wig – a now iconic cinematic image. Although Closer could be dismissed as nothing but an exercise in boundary-pushing at first glance, it’s a satire that cuts much deeper than that.

The relationships of two couples become complicated and deceitful when the man from one couple meets the woman of the other.

What Is 'Closer' About?

Set in modern-day London, the film centers on the romances, breakups, and affairs between four people that become obsessed with controlling each other. Portman stars as Alice Ayres, a young woman trying to find herself, who is nearly killed in a streetway collision. Alice is saved by the writer Dan Woolf ( Jude Law ), who subsequently falls in love with her. After writing a book about their experiences together, Dan begins to lust after the photographer Anna Cameron ( Julia Roberts ), who rebuffs his flirtations which Alice overhears but does not confront Dan about. Dan continues to channel his desires by goading the British dermatologist Larry Gray ( Clive Owen ) into a sexually-charged online chatroom that embarrasses him in front of Anna. However, Larry and Anna begin to fall in love after recognizing that they’ve been deceived.

Why 'V for Vendetta' Should Have Been Natalie Portman's True Superhero Debut

"Everybody is a hero, a lover, a fool, a villain."

Closer is filled with cacophonous dialogue said behind closed doors; since the film is entirely composed of conversations between these four actors, it replicates the experience of watching a theatrical production. Generally, these constraints can be uncinematic, but it's perfect for the concept that Closer is addressing . We’re getting to know the types of conversations that people have in private, and hear about the desires that they’re so frightened to admit in public. While it reveals the shallow nature of intellectuals, Closer unlocks something deeper about the performative nature of modern relationships. Similar to his past films The Graduate and Carnal Knowledge , Nichols uses shocking stylistic indulgences to show something that is very real. In many ways, Portman and her infamous wig are the summation of Closer ’s brilliance; there’s an aura of plasticity that people have when they’re forced to be vulnerable.

'Closer' Strips the Romance Away From Chance Encounters

In fiction, “chance encounters” are often romantic in nature, so it’s amusing that every chance encounter in Closer ends up leading to heartbreak and tragedy. It’s reflective of human nature that despite being given a once-in-a-lifetime romantic opportunity, Dan squanders his relationship with Alice. What Nichols does that is critical is refusing to judge any of these characters for their secret desires. None of them come out as complete victims, and there’s reason to see them all as both detestable and tragic. Initially, we’re supposed to dislike Dan because of his affairs and deceit, but we learn at the end of the film that Alice has been lying to Dan about her real identity. It’s ironic that despite Dan’s obsession with leading people into false relationships online, he doesn’t realize he’s fallen in love with someone he doesn’t really know .

Similarly, there’s irony in Larry and Anna falling in love after a cruel prank. However, this ironic “chance encounter” is also one that’s quickly squandered, as Larry can’t help but feed into his own indulgences when he recognizes Alice’s portrait in a photography gallery of Anna's work. Larry was always driven by his aggressive sexual impulses, which is what Dan initially had taken advantage of. He’s well aware that Alice and Dan are involved with each other, but pursues Alice nonetheless. This is satirically framed alongside Dan’s own affair with Anna. Now, both couples are cheating on each other with their opposite's partners. It’s clever that these sordid conversations take place in a fancy art exhibit intended to show the beauty of human nature.

We Can't Help But Empathize With the Characters

Clive Owen, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, and Jude law standing together in Closer

The “chance encounters” they all shared with each other only created obsession and unlocked new desires; they can’t help but wonder what it might be like to be with someone else. No one ends up getting to have it both ways, and they all end up heartbroken. What’s incredible is that, despite every bitter way Larry, Anna, Alice, and Dan undercut one another, there’s reason to invest in all of them. Alice is trying to make it in a society she doesn’t belong in; Dan is trying to create something artistically profound; Anna wants commitment but can’t help cheating; Larry is obsessed with “winning” because he’s terrified of showing cracks in his masculinity. None of them can help being who they are .

Even though they’re all left hurting because of their obsession with one another, they all end up alone through further ironies. Anna and Larry had sworn to sleep with each other for the last time in order to get revenge on their respective partners, but they were fully aware that they would just end up hurting each other in the end. Of course, the affair once again sparks their desires for each other, continuing their loveless marriage. Alice gained nothing from her encounters with upper society , and she’s left to drift through New York alone in the same state she was in at the beginning. Since Dan never knew Alice’s real name, so he has no way to find her. He notices a memorial for the woman Alice stole her name from; he’s fallen in love and is left grieving for someone that doesn’t exist.

By ending the film on such a solemn note, Nichols comes full circle in his critique. He wanted to show us who these people really are, and in the end, we’re guilty of feeling bad for them. If Nichols preys upon the idea that we’re getting to see what people are like underneath, we’re only able to laugh at them mockingly for a short amount of time. As the beautiful words of Damien Rice ’s “The Blower’s Daughter” play in the background, it’s as if we’re now guilty of having the same obsessions.

Closer is currently available to rent or buy on Apple TV+ in the U.S.

WATCH ON APPLE TV+

Movie Features
Natalie Portman
Mike Nichols

Looking at Film from Every Angle

Review: Closer (2004)

Wesley Lovell

Mike Nichols

Patrick Marber (Novel: Patrick Marber)

Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Clive Owen

MPAA Rating

R (For sequences of graphic sexual dialogue, nudity/sexuality and language)

Buy/Rent Movie

Source material.

Four people. Four ways to build a relationship. Closer guides the audience on a twisted romp through the love lives of four amazingly neurotic people.

The film’s story is incredibly difficult to follow and to start describing now would possibly cause more confusion. Here’s the briefest of summaries. Dan (Jude Law) is a novelist in search of his next novel. Anna (Julia Roberts) is a photographer in search of her next subject. Larry (Clive Owen) is a doctor in search of his next patient. Alice (Natalie Portman) is a young stripper who comes to London to search for a new life.

Through various turns of events, Dan falls in love with Anna and Alice as does Larry. In intermingling turns, Alice falls in love with both men and so does Anna. Each relationship is built on shifting priorities of love and companionship. The complexity comes in where Anna will leave Dan for Larry, Larry will leave Anna for Alice, Alice will leave Larry for Dan and Dan will leave Alice for Anna. All four of them seem to be in love with each other but at odds with whom they should love at any given time.

The film takes place over a number of years as the relationships shift around like a California earthquake. That director Mike Nichols can keep the story together without confusing the audience is a miracle.

That continuity is part of the film’s mesmerizing charm. At one minute, you’re confused why Larry is with Anna and the next minute you’re understanding only too late as he’s moved on to Alice. This constant back and forth becomes more and more difficult to comprehend until the film starts winding to its conclusion. There, the audience becomes painfully aware that these four people are completely incapable of commitment. It’s this haphazardness of storytelling that most symbolizes the relationships of these characters. It’s chaotic and hard to follow because these people are chaotic and hard to follow. Each person has his or her own individual neurosis yet share the same fear of commitment.

All of the film’s complexity bleeds from the pen of playwright Patrick Marber who adapted the screenplay for Closer from his play by the same name. It’s his complex themes and situations that give the film its psychological depth but the story threatens regularly to crush the cast and crew under its hefty moral weight.

The cast performs up to its normal expectations. The weakest element is Law who seems to be stuck in a rut of similar performances. His work is as solid as ever but one begins to question his range when he performs the same act every time. Roberts’s greatest strength is her ability to alter her past performances enough to make them seem new. In Closer , Roberts gives a performance that’s more human and evolved than some of her pop-culture performances in films like Erin Brockovich . Anyone watching this film might think twice about Roberts’ sweet girl-next-door image, though.

Throughout the film, Portman has Amidala ( Star Wars Episodes I and II ) moments but her quality is revived in a late-film scene set inside a strip club where her character refuses to play fair with her tortured ex-lover Larry. This scene is among the film’s most energetic as it also showcases Owen’s brilliant work. He has no qualms about going straight over the top with his vicious physician. Surprisingly, it works. Many other films might collapse under that pressure but Owen’s skill as a thespian allow him to stick above the mundanity.

Closer isn’t the kind of film just any audience would enjoy. The film features complex sexual and relationship themes that might leave some viewers cold. Nevertheless, the movie is a unique take on dysfunctional relationships and anyone who enjoys their drama with the right amount of grit and honesty should enjoy this picture.

Review Written

March 4, 2005

The Ending Of Closer Explained

2004's "Closer" is all about relationships and has some truly hilarious moments, but it's basically the opposite of a romantic comedy. Dan ( Jude Law ), Alice ( Natalie Portman ), Anna ( Julia Roberts ), and Larry (Clive Owen) take turns being miserable and manipulative as their lives repeatedly collide over the course of a few years. Some of the characters might be a little more well-adjusted than others, but by the end of the movie it's pretty clear that all of them have some issues they need to work through.

Directed by Mike Nichols and written by Patrick Marber, "Closer" earned plenty of plaudits at the time, with Portman and Owen both getting Oscar nominations for their work. They give mesmerizing performances that you really can't look away from, even if the characters occasionally make you want to hide your eyes. It won't go down as one of the best romantic movies of all time , but it's an undeniably entertaining film about how relationships go bad — and how they can start bad, too. The characters in "Closer" live in a whirlwind of possessiveness, obsessiveness, and jealousy that makes just about every relationship appear doomed to fail.

Because the relationships in "Closer" are so unstable, they can also be a little hard to follow. The story breezes past entire years as lies pile on top of betrayals and cause relationships to fall apart and come back together. Here's how it all turned out and what the ending of the film means.

What you need to remember about the plot of Closer

What's worse than an unhealthy relationship? Two unhealthy relationships. "Closer" starts by introducing Alice, a former stripper fueled by wanderlust, and Dan, a failed novelist turned obituary writer. The two hit it off and start dating, but their honeymoon phase doesn't last that long. Dan finally publishes a book, and he becomes infatuated by Anna, a professional photographer who's hired to take Dan's picture for the novel's release. When they first meet, Dan kisses Anna, who almost immediately reveals the truth to Alice.

Despite what happened, Dan and Alice stay together. However, Dan just can't get Anna off his mind. As part of his strange obsession with her, Dan pretends to be Anna while talking to other men in online chat rooms. Dan decides to play a prank on one of them, telling a man named Larry to meet Anna at the aquarium the following day. As luck would have it, the real Anna actually is at the aquarium when Larry arrives, and after a supremely awkward first encounter, the two of them fall in love.

A year goes by, and Dan can't stop obsessing about Anna. He takes Alice to one of Anna's art gallery openings, and she meets Larry for the first time. Dan and Anna kick off an affair and they continue secretly seeing each other for the next year, even as Anna gets married to Larry.

What happens at the end of Closer?

Of course, Dan and Anna don't keep their affair a secret forever. Eventually the two of them tell their respective partners what's going on. Alice begs Dan to stay with her, but he refuses. She decides to completely disappear from Dan's life in response. Larry, on the other hand, is enraged at Anna and storms out of their apartment, but he becomes determined to win Anna back.

Some time passes, and Larry meets Alice for the second time. This time the two meet while Alice is working at a strip club, and later that night they sleep together. Larry keeps his relationship with Alice at just a one night stand. Anna files for divorce, and in a last ditch attempt to win her back, Larry tells Anna that he'll only sign the divorce papers if she agrees to sleep with him one last time. When Anna tells Dan what happened, he's horrified, and their relationship begins to deteriorate.

Amazingly, Larry's plan works. Dan and Anna completely fall apart, and she decides to get back together with Larry. Devastated, Dan shows up at Larry's office and begs for Anna back, but Larry tells him where to find Alice and urges Dan to get back together with her. Dan does restart things with Alice, but he becomes obsessed with knowing whether or not she slept with Larry. Alice realizes that Dan doesn't trust her, and she leaves him. As the movie comes to a close, we learn that Alice's real name is Jane — a fact she only ever revealed to Larry.

Does the ending of the play differ from the movie?

Adapting your own stage show into a movie seems like a fairly straightforward process, but no adaptation is ever one-to-one. Plus, no author can resist the opportunity to make changes to their own work. For the most part, both versions of Patrick Marber's "Closer" are the same. The movie and the play follow the same four characters, and their relationships progress and fall apart in nearly identical ways. Only a few details got changed from the stage to the screen, but some of those details make a big difference to the characters and to the ending.

The movie version of "Closer" removes an entire scene from the second act of the play. In the scene, Alice confronts Anna about her affair with Dan, and she takes a chance to steal back the pictures that Anna took of her when they initially met after Dan's photography session. This scene lets the two leading women have another tense interaction, and it also gives Alice much more agency in how her own story plays out. For whatever reason, the screenplay is more focused on the men of the story.

Perhaps the biggest difference is that Alice dies at the end of the play. Sadly, she gets hit by a car after returning to America. Dan flies over to identify her body because there's nobody else to do it. While this wasn't included in the movie, the final shot actually drops a massive hint about Alice's fate. Like at the beginning of the film, she's shown crossing a road, though eagle-eyed viewers have noticed that she's crossing with the "don't walk" sign lit up red. She escaped with her life when she was struck by a car in London, but the play tells us that she's not so lucky this time around.

Why does Dan introduce Anna to Larry?

Dan had no idea what he was setting in motion when he first introduced Larry to Anna. Of course, Dan didn't actually intend for the two of them to meet in person, and their chance encounter at the aquarium was mostly out of his control. However, it's still worth asking why Dan was pretending to be Anna while speaking to men in online chat rooms. One of Dan's biggest problems in both of his relationships is that he wants to possess whoever he's in love with. It's not enough for Dan to be with someone as an equal. He has to have some kind of power or control over the other person. That's why Dan blows up his relationships with Anna and Alice after learning that each of them slept with Larry.

When it comes to Dan's peculiar internet habits, pretending to be Anna is just one more way he feels like he can get control over her. In his mind, Dan can make Anna do anything he wants with anyone he wants when he's using her persona online. The scene where Dan and Larry chat online is definitely the funniest moment of the entire movie, but underneath the comedy is a look at the dark side of Dan's obsessive nature. In the end, it's his obsessiveness that ultimately ruins his chances of saving things with Alice, and the foundations of that moment are laid in scenes like this one.

Why did Anna and Larry get back together?

Dan may not be the nicest guy around, but that doesn't mean Larry gets to be automatically considered a catch. When Larry first meets Anna, he thinks she's come to the aquarium to meet him for sex, so he doesn't introduce himself the way a normal person would. Once Anna pieces together that Dan must have been playing a prank, she and Larry have a good laugh and go on to keep talking to each other. Sex and humor form the basis of their relationship, but Larry also has a darker side.

Larry is a little sex obsessed and sometimes quick to anger, but his biggest flaw — even though it works to his advantage in "Closer" — is that he's manipulative. Larry begs Anna to sleep with him one last time before finalizing their divorce, but later we find out that his real motivation was messing with Dan's head. Larry knew that if he and Anna slept together, Dan wouldn't be able to keep the relationship going.

Larry used sex as a weapon against Dan, but at the same time, he really did love Anna. The biggest difference between Larry and Dan is that Larry doesn't view Anna as something to control or possess. The love between them is genuine, if messy. They get back together because they always had feelings for each other and they figure out that those feelings are more important than everything that happened with Dan.

What lessons were learned?

It can be a little difficult to track everyone's relationship status in "Closer," so here's the general breakdown. Dan starts dating Alice. Anna starts dating Larry. Then Dan and Anna start sleeping together and keep it up even while Anna gets married to Larry. The truth comes out, so everyone breaks up. Dan and Anna start officially dating, but that doesn't last long. Anna gets back together with Larry. Dan gets back together with Alice, but then she leaves him when he won't stop asking if she slept with Larry while they were broken up.

That's enough back and forth for a lifetime, but every twist and turn taken sheds new light on the characters. In the beginning, Dan's obsession with the idea of love is stronger than his loyalty in a relationship. Anna also seemingly falls into that trap, keen on following her heart. Alice, meanwhile, has over-invested in her relationship with Dan and almost completely forgets about herself. Larry lands somewhere in the middle, but he also wants to get one over on Dan from the very beginning.

By the end of the movie, surely some important lessons have been learned? Well, it's hard to say whether or not the characters in "Closer" really learn anything from their experiences. Alice is the only one who seems to change her view on relationships and how to define her self-worth. The others are too locked into their own habits and gut impulses to really grow. At least the audience can learn something from watching their failures play out.

Why did Alice lie to Dan about her name?

"Closer" doesn't really have a twist ending, but the secret of Alice's real name does act as a final surprise in the story. When she first meets Dan, the two of them take a walk through Postman's Park, and before they go their separate ways for the day, she introduces herself as Alice Ayres. Most of us probably didn't think anything of the name, but Larry notices that something is strange when he meets Alice at the strip club where she's working.

At the club, Alice again introduces herself as Alice. Larry demands that she tell him her real name, which she says is Jane. He doesn't believe her, and their argument gets pretty heated. No matter how much Larry yells, Alice keeps insisting that she's not lying to him. It's not until the very end of the movie that the audience learns she really was telling the truth. After Alice finally ends her relationship with Dan, she decides to fly home to New York. When she's moving through customs, the camera shows her passport and reveals that she really is called Jane.

Back in London, a nostalgic Dan decides to take a solo walk back through Postman's Park. While he's making his way along the same path he once walked with Alice, he notices that the park has a small memorial for a woman named Alice Ayres. The revelation shows us that even though she was apparently obsessed with Dan, part of Alice always understood that their relationship could never last.

What will Alice do now?

The ending of "Closer" doesn't leave us with many questions about the characters who are living in London. Larry and Anna have found a way past their differences. They're back together, and, based on the conversation they had when they first split up, are presumably getting ready to have kids. Dan is working as the editor of his newspaper's obituary section. Alice, on the other hand, remains a bit of a mystery at the end of the movie. We know that she tragically dies in the play, but we don't see that play out in the film. As such, viewers are left to guess about what's in store for her.

When she first came to London, Alice seemed like a free spirit who wanted to travel and chase her own passions. In reality, she almost immediately tied herself to Dan and made their relationship the core of her identity. Because of that, we never really got a strong sense of what Alice actually wants for herself in life. Now that she's single and back in New York, there's really no telling what she's going to do. Alice herself might not even have any idea what she wants, but separating herself from Dan has finally given her an opportunity to figure that out. As long as she remembers to look both ways before crossing the road, the future is bright for her by the time the credits roll.

What has the cast and crew said about Closer?

Patrick Marber told The Guardian that he penned the majority of "Closer" on a writers' retreat in Ireland. He first imagined the characters who would later become Alice and Larry after being "dragged along to a lap-dancing club." Eventually, Alice's name came to him in Postman's Park, like in the movie. "When it was shot in London, I experienced the strangeness of there being a movie crew in little Postman's Park," he said. "It's odd how life works out."

In that same interview, Clive Owen opened up about his experience with "Closer." He read the original stage script and thought that it was "such an honest examination of the pain from relationships and what it feels like to be bereft." Owen jumped at the chance to act in a stage production of "Closer," but he didn't get the role he really wanted: Marber thought Owen was too young to play Larry, so he was given the role of Dan instead. Owen finally got to play Larry in the film, which he called "the most incredible gift."

The person who had the biggest influence on the film was late director Mike Nichols. Not only did he get a brilliant performance out of Natalie Portman, who called Nichols "the only older man who mentored me without there ever being a creepy element in it" in a book about his life (via People ), but it was reportedly also his idea to change the ending of the movie. According to an Entertainment Weekly report from the time, this big change (presumably removing Alice's death in New York) was a last minute one.

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Common Sense Says
Parents Say 5 Reviews
Kids Say 2 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

By Nell Minow , based on child development research. How do we rate?

Searing story of betrayal isn't for kids.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this movie is filled with extremely adult material, with exceptionally explicit sexual references, including adultery and oral sex. There are scenes in a strip club. Characters drink, smoke, and use very strong, explicit, and graphic language. There are tense and upsetting scenes of jealousy,…

Why Age 18+?

Extremely strong language.

Extremely explicit sexual references and situations, strip club.

Drinking and smoking.

Intense emotional confrontations, slap.

Any Positive Content?

None of the characters act very honorably.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

Parents say (5)
Kids say (2)

Based on 5 parent reviews

Good drama and somewhat black comedy in some areas, very sexual.

What's the story.

With an anguished wail, Larry (Clive Owen) asks where he can find intimacy. In a private room in a strip club, where the rules say that you can look, but not touch. The stripper's ex-boyfriend Dan (Jude Law) is now romantically involved with Larry's ex-wife, Anna (Julia Roberts). Does he really want intimacy or does he want revenge? Or does he just want the stripper to bend over and touch the floor? Probably all of the above. This is a searing story of hurt and betrayal with two couples who reach for each other in almost every combination. They may get, as in the movie's title CLOSER, but do they ever really get close? Larry is a dermatologist. Anna is a photographer. Alice (Natalie Portman) is a stripper turned waitress turned stripper again. And Dan is an obituary writer who has written a novel.

Is It Any Good?

This film is more clever than wise. Those who have been angered and betrayed by love might find it validating, but that does not make it insightful. The characters toss around the l-word a great deal, but there is no evidence that any of them even see each other, much less know or love each other. Both female characters are somewhere between a fantasy and a narrative convenience, their only function to drive the men crazy. The film's center is the relationship between the two men. Their connections with the women have more to do with the struggle between them over power and territory than with knowing or caring for Anna and Alice.

Portman is dazzling to watch. Owen and Law do well, but this is not the best use of Roberts' considerable talents; it may be that director Mike Nichols was relying more on the shock value of hearing America's sweetheart speak about oral sex in explicit terms than on her ability to convey a superficially conceived character.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about what the characters were really looking for. What did playwright/screenwriter Patrick Marber want to show us with the occupations of the four characters? What do we learn from the name on Alice's passport? Were Dan and Anna using Alice by writing the novel and taking her photo?

Movie Details

In theaters : December 3, 2004
On DVD or streaming : March 29, 2005
Cast : Jude Law , Julia Roberts , Natalie Portman
Director : Mike Nichols
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : Sony Pictures
Genre : Drama
Run time : 100 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : sequences of graphic sexual dialogue, nudity/sexuality and language
Last updated : February 17, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Julia roberts, natalie portman, colin stinton, screenrant review, closer review.

This movie was better than I thought it would be but the characters are such idiots that I found it hard to enjoy the movie more than just marginally.

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Seth meyers touts the “closest f***ing look we’ve ever taken” in primetime special following debate.

Meyers went deep on the Kamala Harris vs. Donald Trump presidential debate in an hourlong special recorded live.

By Zoe G. Phillips

Zoe G. Phillips

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Seth Meyers touted the “Closest Fucking Look We’ve Ever Taken in Our Motherfucking Lives” on Wednesday night, as the Late Night segment moved to primetime and went deep on Tuesday’s presidential debate.

Tuesday’s debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump drew a substantially larger audience than the June debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, with many arguing Harris performed far better than Trump.

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Australian Story: Making Lachlan Murdoch, ABC review: a closer look at the chosen one

Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch at News Ltd in 2003. Image: News Corp/ Supplied by ABC.

You might wonder why the opening episode of journalist Paddy Manning’s three-part Australian Story into what drives 53-year-old Lachlan Murdoch spends most of its time focused not on him but squarely on his father, Rupert, and grandfather, Keith.

You might , but probably not if you watched the backstabbing HBO drama, Succession . Just as Brian Cox’s grizzly media baron Logan Roy loomed angrily large over his squabbling scions – played by local hero Sarah Snook alongside Kieran Culkin and Jeremy Strong – so it was in the family that inspired the show.

A clip of Lachlan’s sister Elizabeth insisting that they’re not a living soap opera – ‘We’re a normal family, we just have a spotlight on it’– rings hollow, especially given she, James and Prudence, their sister from another mother, are now engaged in a very real succession battle to wrest back control of the media empire, after Lachlan was named as Rupert’s chosen successor last year.

Who is Lachlan Murdoch?

According to the very few folks willing to come forward for this documentary – including mate and fellow billionaire James Packer – Lachlan’s an intensely private person who guards that self-erected shield zealously, leaving Manning to make do with intriguing archival footage.

That includes a 2001 interview with a blue-suited, fresh-faced and spiky-haired Lachlan, who appears to open a locked door in his head when he says, ‘When you’re brought up in a family business, it’s all around you from a very early age … there’s no sense of turning business on and off. It is my life … I hope it’s healthy, because it’s the only thing I’ve ever known.’

This glimmer of self-doubt is anathema to the manner in which Rupert has gouged out a multi-faceted media dominion of monstrous proportions – a characterisation that saw Time magazine depict him in the late 70s as King Kong aloft the Empire State Building, when he acquired the New York Post .

Episode one lays out the humble beginning of the business through Keith Murdoch’s efforts in Adelaide. Though he died before Lachlan was born, it’s suggested the younger man idealises the origin story. Manning also tackles the conundrum of how a once ‘socialist’ and ‘idealistic’ Rupert turned, realising bad news sells better, taking the business interstate – including founding The Australian in Canberra – then global.

It also suggests that the kids were once tight. That though their father was forthright, they were close to him. A recollection of them assembling around Rupert at the breakfast table each morning as he went through the papers issuing decrees on which stories weren’t subbed properly is amusing. As is another image of a very young Lachlan mimicking his hands-on-press print dad by scribbling in a notepad while Rupert pontificated.

But trouble was already brewing.

A mother’s warning

Several former employees insist Lachlan was always the chosen one, beloved of his father and besotted in return. So much so that his mother, Rupert’s second wife Anna, worried about what would happen if the weren’t held equally tight.

Indeed, long before Armstrong’s show, Glasgow-born Anna – aunt of The Newsreader star Anna Torv – had already predicted a vicious splintering in her 1988 novel Family Business , about the suspiciously similar MacLean media barons and their sibling rivalry.

But like the prophet Cassandra, Anna appears to have been cursed by the gods to discern the future clearly yet endure her warnings being ignored.

Anna worked for the business, interviewing Rupert as a cadet before being swept off her feet. Featuring prominently in this opening ep, she was by his side in London as Murdoch senior assumed control of the ill-fated The News of the World and still-burning The Sun .

Lachlan, meanwhile, was born in London but spent most of his childhood in the US. Yet he insists, in that 2001 interview, that he considers himself Australian and wishes he could ditch his American accent. There’s also footage of a leaner, bleach-blond Lachlan later assuming control of the Brisbane arm of the business after a self-imposed, rock-climbing black sheep exile.

Will the next two chapters give us clearer answers on who this secretive Murdoch truly is? Quite probably. Manning certainly has form, digging in their dirt. He penned an unofficial Lachlan biography – managing not to be sued – produced a podcast on the clan, and is now writing a thesis on them too.

What we’ve seen so far is juicy, even without the current cohort contributing. But why do we care? As the person (for now) in control of the Murdoch empire, his reach is inescapably global and affects us all.

Australian Story: Making Lachlan Murdoch premieres on ABC and ABC iview on 9 September.

4 out of 5 stars

Australian Story: Making Lachlan Murdoch, ABC review

Stephen A Russell

Paddy Manning

Format: TV Series

Country: Australia

Release: 09 September 2024

Available on:

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IMAGES

Closer movie review & film summary (2004)
Closer Movie Review
Closer
Closer (2004) Review
‎Closer (2004) directed by Mike Nichols • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd
Closer

COMMENTS

Closer
Closer. NEW. Alice (Natalie Portman), an American stripper who has moved to London, meets Dan (Jude Law) on the street. While looking at him, a taxi hits her. After taking her to the hospital, Dan ...
Gender wars on a whole new level movie review (2004)
104 minutes ‧ R ‧ 2004. Roger Ebert. December 2, 2004. 5 min read. Jude Law and Julia Roberts get "Closer" in the new Mike Nichols film. Mike Nichols ' "Closer" is a movie about four people who richly deserve one another. Fascinated by the game of love, seduced by seduction itself, they play at sincere, truthful relationships which ...
Closer (2004)
Closer: Directed by Mike Nichols. With Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Clive Owen. The relationships of two couples become complicated and deceitful when the man from one couple meets the woman of the other.
Closer
The movie is like a comedy someone dipped in a solvent. Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Jun 4, 2014. Searing story of betrayal isn't for kids. Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 22 ...
Closer (2004)
Review: Closer is a respectable effort. The film had a lot of potential, but failed in so many ways. Closer can be seen as the anti-date movie. It's hard to like the characters, and even harder to like their actions. Even so, it paints a picture so close to reality. A controversy revolving Closer was the sexual content.
When Talk Is Sexier Than a Clichéd Clinch
Like most interesting movies about sex, ''Closer,'' Mike Nichols's deft film adaptation of a well-known play by Patrick Marber, is mostly talk. There are still a few filmmakers -- not all of them ...
Why Closer Still Matters Two Decades After Its Release
There's Dan (Jude Law), the romantic writer who suffers from crippling jealousy. Larry (Clive Owen) is rugged and boorish, despite being a respected doctor. Anna (Julia Roberts) is a world-weary photographer who secretly craves romance. And then there's Alice (Natalie Portman), a young stripper who lives for love and not much else.
Closer (film)
Closer is a 2004 American romantic drama directed and produced by Mike Nichols and written by Patrick Marber, based on his award-winning 1997 play of the same name.It stars Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, and Clive Owen.The film, like the play on which it is based, has been seen by some as a modern and tragic version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 1790 opera Così fan tutte, with ...
Closer
Closer - Metacritic. 2004. R. Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) 1 h 44 m. Summary A bitingly funny and honest look at modern relationships, Closer is the story of four strangers -- their chance meetings, instant attractions and casual betrayals. (Sony Pictures)
Closer Review
Closer Review. Dan helps Alice after a minor accident. After using her in his novel, he's photographed by Anna. Through an internet prank, Dan gets Anna together with Larry, before Larry finds ...
Review: Mike Nichols 'Closer'
Embed. Film critic David Edelstein reviews Closer, starring Jude Law and Natalie Portman, and directed by Mike Nichols. Read & Listen.
Closer
A scathing critique of Mike Nichols's adaptation of Patrick Marber's play about a vicious love quartet in London. The review praises the actors' performances, especially Julia Roberts', but criticizes the dialogue, the music and the ending.
The Movie Review: 'Closer'
The Movie Review: 'Closer'. "Flawlessly lucid"; "viciously insightful"; "quietly devastating"; "emotionally honest and psychologically dense"; "dares speak the truth about modern adult ...
Closer (2004)
The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt. Determined to be faithful to the strong, often shocking language and in-your-face drama in Marber's mannered writing, Nichols and his actors find no way to lift Closer into a realm that enlightens. See all 42 reviews on Metacritic.com. See all external reviews for Closer.
Partners Who Cheat but Tell the Truth
Dec. 8, 2004. In the romantic yet cynical new film "Closer," Anna admits to her lover, Dan, that she has cheated on him with Larry, her soon-to-be-ex-husband. "We said we'd always tell each other ...
Closer
Closer (United States, 2004) A movie review by James Berardinelli. If you pay attention to Hollywood's romantic comedies, the interaction between men and women is all about love and companionship. If you instead rely upon the philosophy of Closer, it's all about power. Closer starts like a nice romantic drama, with a couple of "meet cutes" (as ...
Closer Review
3.0. Closer is a drama film directed by Mike Nichols, featuring Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, and Clive Owen. The film explores the intricate and tumultuous relationships between two couples in London, focusing on themes of love, betrayal, and the complexities of human connection.
Is 'Closer' Actually Good or Do We Just Love Natalie ...
Closer. The relationships of two couples become complicated and deceitful when the man from one couple meets the woman of the other. Actors. Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Clive Owen ...
Review: Closer (2004)
Closer isn't the kind of film just any audience would enjoy. The film features complex sexual and relationship themes that might leave some viewers cold. Nevertheless, the movie is a unique take on dysfunctional relationships and anyone who enjoys their drama with the right amount of grit and honesty should enjoy this picture. Review Written
The Ending Of Closer Explained
2004's "Closer" is all about relationships and has some truly hilarious moments, but it's basically the opposite of a romantic comedy. Dan (Jude Law), Alice (Natalie Portman), Anna (Julia Roberts ...
Closer Movie Review
age 16+. Good drama and somewhat black comedy in some areas, very sexual. I'm one of those at-home critics that enjoys watching very well acclaimed performances, and there is definitely some in this movie. It tells a good story of 4 people, 2 couples after the other person in the other couple. Interesting.
Closer Summary, Trailer, Cast, and More
Closer is a drama film directed by Mike Nichols, featuring Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, and Clive Owen. The film explores the intricate and tumultuous relationships between two couples in London, focusing on themes of love, betrayal, and the complexities of human connection.
Closer
Closer (2004) Starring Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Clive Owen, and Julia Roberts! By far one of the best romance dramas out there and there's alot of reasons ...
Seth Meyers Reviews Debate in Primetime 'A Closer Look' Special
Meyers' full "A Closer Look" monologue, which typically runs about 12 minutes at the top of a Late Night episode, lasted about 50 minutes in total during the primetime show, which was ...
Australian Story: Making Lachlan Murdoch, ABC review: a closer look at
You might wonder why the opening episode of journalist Paddy Manning's three-part Australian Story into what drives 53-year-old Lachlan Murdoch spends most of its time focused not on him but squarely on his father, Rupert, and grandfather, Keith.. You might, but probably not if you watched the backstabbing HBO drama, Succession.Just as Brian Cox's grizzly media baron Logan Roy loomed ...
MiNT's slick-looking $800 film camera is up for preorder
The Rollei 35AF is inching closer to release, and photographers can now preorder one in chrome for $799 (or $828 for black). It's a new take on the original from 1966, with autofocus. Early ...

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The Ending Of Closer Explained

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Good drama and somewhat black comedy in some areas, very sexual.