December 2, 2004
By Matt Savelloni
“IS SEX DIRTY? ONLY IF IT’S DONE RIGHT.” – Woody Allen
Writing about relationships is fraught with inherent disaster. Just when we think we have a handle on an amorous pairing – just when it appears that it will adhere to the expected conditions – we are blindsided by an unforeseen event. It could be something as benign as leaving the cap off the toothpaste or as shattering as cheating, but the incident catalyzes reactions to either continue or end the relationship. No other subject matter, no other author, is as scrutinized as the one who dares speak about love, “love” and/or Love. That’s why CLOSER is the perfect title to Patrick Marber’s eminent play. He not only brings his characters nearer to each other, he expands the stage around the theater and slowly, inexorably draws us in.
Starting out almost as a sex farce, CLOSER quickly loses such tendencies and moves bravely into gender conflict. We open in an emergency room with Dan and Alice just after a meet-not-so-cute where the cab he was riding in knocks her down. Within a few pages, they have exposed themselves and acquired a tender interest in the other. Dan is an obituary writer – a man constantly writing endings – while Alice strips for a living –a young lady unable to find beginnings. Their relationship eventually blossoms into sharing a flat. Alice’s steamy occupation prompts Dan to finally write his Great British Novel while his attuned consideration stokes in her a promise of being cherished. However, just as their new life begins to take flight, Anna and Larry enter their lives, unwittingly sowing the seeds of destruction.
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Anna is a photographer hired to shoot Dan’s picture for the book jacket. She fixates him, even as she features Alice as the face of her new exhibition. Larry – the doctor who first examined Alice in the ER – also comes in ardent contact with Dan and Alice through a string of slightly implausible but very funny circumstances. By the end of the first act, Marber has effectively assembled the love quadrangle and its emotive components: Dan’s sudden liberation, Alice’s wounded vulnerability, Anna’s confident intensity and Larry’s famished sex hound. And while this setup is clever and involving, the undercurrent of ominous inevitability never leaves us.
“TRUST THE INSTINCT TO THE END, THOUGH YOU CAN RENDER NO REASON.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Although we lend a level of sympathy towards Dan, Alice, Anna and Larry, their actions will alienate many viewers. Marber, even as he’s entertaining us in grand fashion, manages to make us feel like compelled voyeurs, watchers imbued with a superiority sprung from partition. If distance makes the heart grow fonder, in CLOSER, the fourth wall separating the seats from the stage – or the reader from the page – provides a safe haven to harden the heart. After all, we are not in Dan, Alice, Anna or Larry’s shoes. Most of us never will be that handsome, coquettish or disloyal. But many will still cheat without even the base gamesmanship and shallow justifications of fervor the four antagonists – and yes, in CLOSER, they are all antagonists – endure and propagate. We cannot know how we will react to impulsive possibilities until faced with such a situation. We tell ourselves we will remain true, but like it or not, nothing clouds judgment like the prospect of new and unhindered sexual adventure.
Let’s face it: the traditional tropes of marriage and commitment are dead. With a divorce rate hovering somewhere around two-thirds, it’s more noteworthy when a couple stays together rather than parting. CLOSER imparts that reality better than any other modern work we may encounter. It is bold, brash and stark in its truth. Most lovers are delusional about their devotion. There are always faults, traits we wish our significant other would abandon. And when you see the lack of these characteristics embodied in a fresh object of desire, it is only natural to seek it out, even if as a simple flirtation. Ignoring this fact is not only foolhardy, it exacerbates the condition of blind dedication that when finally cracked, sends an otherwise faithful partner into the arms of another. But CLOSER is not merely a blithe showcase of infidelity. Marber’s play details indulgence in jagged contrast to the scalding effects of pursuing an ideal. The notion that there is only one true love for us is childish and inane, but the love we do find needs to be nursed and pruned and reinvigorated constantly in order to survive. By the time the final curtain falls, the dull routine of coupling does find a bitter end in CLOSER but the virtuoso Marber leaves the uncertain moral in the hands – and hearts – of his now devastated audience.
“COMMITMENT IS HEALTHIEST WHEN IT'S NOT WITHOUT DOUBT BUT IN SPITE OF DOUBT.” – Rollo May
I can’t get excited. I keep telling myself not to get too fired up, but I can’t help it. The big screen version of Patrick Marber’s CLOSER seems like a – gasp! – movie created by and for adults. Is it possible? Is it even remotely possible that we will have a jazzy, R-rated, thought-provoking film on the subject of relationships? Can’t be! Where’s Garry Marshall? Where is the WB cast? Where are the marketing opportunities, the PG13 syrupy horseshit to bring in the suburban rubes? Where is the best-selling soundtrack and insipid trailer of matinee idols farting and smacking their heads on things and stuttering in front of other good-looking people and drinking foul substances by accident?
The answer, my fine film fans, is nowhere. CLOSER appears to be a smart, vibrant film from a man who over thirty years ago laid waste to contemporary relationships with CARNAL KNOWLEDGE. His name is Mike Nichols and if you don’t know who he is, stop reading. Now. Leave. Go rent SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE and SAY ANYTHING and make it a double feature of mindless, superficial explorations of monotonous romance that exist nowhere in the real world. Leave the rest of us to Nichols and his killer cast.
Jude Law makes his 78th appearance in 2004 and hopefully this will be the first one worth seeing. But I kid, I kid! Jude is one of the top actors in the game right now, unafraid to exploit or play against his “sexiest man alive” status. He takes on the role of Dan, the less flashy of the two male leads, once against supporting the notion that Jude is more interested in performing than promoting.
I feel I must defend Julia Roberts as her name sparks a level of vitriol in some. I think she is a fine actress displaying an expanding range as she continues to mature past ingénue in films like ERIN BROCKOVICH, NOTTING HILL, OCEAN’S ELEVEN and CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND. Her turn as Anna is a perfect fit, matching qualities of an independent woman with a hesitant yet hopeful paramour.
And speaking of ingénue, CLOSER also features Natalie Portman and what can I say that hasn’t been written about this staggering beauty? We are truly blessed in this time and place to be able to watch her grow from precocious teen into stunning leading lady. There are very few artists of any ilk in any discipline who have acquired so many desirables but Portman has perfected them all: splendor, brains, charm, wit, grace, presence, compassion, vulnerability, deportment, dignity and confidence. She has yet to give a bad performance – we will ignore the recent STAR WARS marketing events because it is impossible to give an honest performance in atrocious video games pretending to be films. CLOSER should be just another step in Portman’s ascension to the Queen’s throne of Tinseltown.
The fourth lead is Clive Owen and I must admit a certain reservation to this actor. He has charisma to burn but seems a bit lifeless onscreen, lacking passion and acuity. And while this opaqueness served him well in the BMW spots and the potent CROUPIER, his other performances have sucked the life out of his scenes. I am looking forward to his turn as Larry to showcase a more enervated Clive Owen.
Again, all the elements seem to be in place for a grand cinema experience. A Mike Nichols film is always welcome and combined with his recent tours de force of WIT and ANGELS IN AMERICA, the master seems revitalized. In lesser hands, CLOSER might have turned into a couple hours of insanely beautiful people saying dirty words and doing the nasty. Methinks Marber’s screenplay and Nichols have something far more elevated in mind. Recent reports that Nichols cut Portman’s racier scenes suggest an aim far above salacious and that is no surprise. At the very least, CLOSER will certainly be one of the most talked-about films of the year, and could end up being responsible for more than a few break-ups.
I don’t say this very often, but go see this movie regardless of the reviews and regardless of what your dumbass friends and neighbors say. I haven’t seen it yet, so this is all speculation but a film like CLOSER needs to be supported, if not for it’s almost certain majesty then for what it represents: adult programming with a beating heart and active brain that makes no allowance for the middlebrow, politically and socially constipated, mall-multiplex appetites poisoning one of the few great American art forms.
Thank you, Misters Nichols and Marber.
“Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust.” – Marquis de Sade
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