Closer (2004)

Artwork for Brazilian Theatrical Release

Although my daughter is named Natalie because of the resonant nature of the performance from the then Ms. Portman, I might not be able to tell her that until after she's 18.

Maybe 30.

Maybe forty.

What an intense film, one of my favorites, and definitely one of the best films ever made.  Even if it has been a bit lost to time in the last eight years.

I must admit that I can't watch it all the time, and I bet neither will you.

There's an unrelenting intensity to these four actors (Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, and Clive Owen) that pushes you to the edge of your seat for 103 minutes.  Fancies your erogenous.  Pesters your sanity.  Molests your morality.  And enlivens your adulterations, while cautioning you to be canonising throughout.

It is as impeccable a script as you can find, laying out the prose.  Playing with structure and time constraints.  Managing to span nearly five years in one-hundred minutes, and doing so with the fluidity and ease of an octogenarian's reminisce.  Skipping forward, backward, sideways, all without notice, leaving you trying to decide whether you should figure out what happened, or to simply move ahead and try to understand what's happening.

It is migraine inducing, but yet somehow manages to not feel fragmented.

The cinematography takes that perfected prose and upends it to poetry, and what a great thing it is to watch.

But you don't have time for that.  The scripts pulls you ahead and intertwines you lucidly into this web of lovers, although reality might find them more contrived.

They're all assholes, yes.  But you have to decide who to believe if anyone at all.

You start out being disgusted by Clive Owen, and although he never changes (none of the characters really do, they just reveal themselves), he's the one you end up loving.

Artwork for Theatrical Release

Not the conniving, puny, crybaby Jude Law.

Not the jubilant, sly, brash, aggressive, and confounding Natalie Portman.

And most definitely not the complicated and narcissistic, even if tragic Julia Roberts.

The film is ultimately a character film, although a lot does happen throughout, and although you'll leave in pain and dumbfounded, the actors are a joy to watch.  They are at the top of their game.

If you love phenomenal films.  Heavy yes, but phenomenally so.  Then buy this film, although I should warn you to get a better release than my 2005 DVD release:  The compression used for telecining, manages to make fast camera movements look horrible.

This film is destined to be around forever, at least on my shelf.  Enjoy.