Closer **** (2004, Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Clive Owen) – Classic Movie Review 1870

The intertwining lives of four strangers in London come under the microscope in this smart, stylish and witty 2004 movie from posh US director Mike Nichols. The four stars – Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Clive Owen – have the entire film to themselves, so it’s lucky that they are so compelling and on their most inspired form.

Dan (Law) and Alice (Portman) first meet up, then he meets Anna (Roberts), who’s having a relationship with Larry (Owen). Somehow you know that no good is going to come of all this, and that the character will end up sadder but wiser.

Very obviously based on a play (by Patrick Marber, writing his own screenplay), the movie unfolds in a series of dialogues, some of them quite shocking and graphic. The actors, especially Law, make a lovely job of speaking the artificial, theatrical lines as though they are ‘real’ conversation.

London is a fifth character in the film, and Nichols films against effective, quirky backdrops, with brio, eye-catching camerawork by Stephen Goldblatt. Searingly funny, this is a classy event. 

There were five Golden Globe nominations, including best picture, and Portman and Owen won as Best Supporting Actress and Actor. Both of them were nominated in the same categories at the Oscars but this time they didn’t win. Owen had the Law part on stage in the London theatre.

Roberts and Owen reconvened for Duplicity in 2009.

Mike Nichols died on November 19 2014, aged 83. He is the director of The Graduate, Silkwood and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1870

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