Closer (2004)

RE-view! Rules are here.

I see now what my problem with it was. I couldn't quite put my finger on it before, but I've got it now.

It's not the performances. The performances are excellent. Not uniformly so, but that's too much to expect. It's tough to tell if Portman and Owens play the more compelling characters or if their characters are more compelling because they are so well played. Alice owns Dan from the first moment that she locks eyes on him through the crowded street, and it's her that gives him the courage to pursue Anna so ruthlessly. Portman gives the opposite performance of what a doe-eyed ingenue would do: instead of letting vulnerability show around the edges of her strength, Portman makes strength shine through layers of vulnerability.

Owens has the mean task of playing the most adult character in the movie, one who has emotions and issues but isn't too far gone to recognize responsibility. When he is introduced, he's the victim of a cruel joke, and he spends the rest of the movie floating on top of the other characters, able to observe and plan and execute when the rest are awash.

Although I have a tendency to point the finger at Roberts, she's not as bad as I originally made out. She makes it easy to understand why Anna is drawn to both Dan and Larry. Her early scene with Portman is probably her weakest, but her work with Owens elevates her usual shtick to an impressive level.

It's Dan that remains a mystery to me. Never mind what I feel are Law's diminishing returns. If you consider the relationship between Dan and Anna the movie's catalyst, then it has to be the most believable one, right? Except it's not. Dan's obsession with Anna baffles me. It comes out of nowhere, and it never feels quite right. After awhile you can accept that he is obsessed, but the important why continues to nag in the back of your mind.

Still, it's not the acting or the direction or the cinematography, for that matter, that holds the movie back. It's the writing. Specifically, it's the screen adaptation that doesn't work. Plays are talky by nature; it's fair to expect a talky movie. Patrick Marber basically "opened up" his play: I'm guessing that there are a lot more locations here than in the original work. Locations aren't enough. Everything happens off screen. Everything. The art show is the centrepiece (right), and it's well done, but it's the scene in the private room between Alice and Larry (top) that has the most going on and feels the most real. Not everything has to happen where we can't see it. Putting the viewer in the middle of the action helps them get more out of what they are seeing.

My original grade (B -) seems generous upon second viewing. C +