So 'Closer' looks good then.

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anyone ssen it?
anyone seen the play?
anyone seen both?

weird though how peter o'hanrahahanrahan is now
like a rich hollywood writer and soon to be oscar-nominated, isnt it?

― piscesboy, Thursday, 13 January 2005 20:40 (twenty years ago)

yes, it is good

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 13 January 2005 20:41 (twenty years ago)

http://www.bigempire.com/filthy/closer.html

many folks don't like it. that's one of them.

― kingfish (Kingfish), Thursday, 13 January 2005 20:46 (twenty years ago)

Take the c off that title.

― Leon the Fatboy (Ex Leon), Thursday, 13 January 2005 20:47 (twenty years ago)

It was okay. Performances were good, direction was fine. I just thought there were a lot of holes in the script. I mean, I like the idea of the film breezily jumping ahead in time, but I felt like it prevented us from really getting to know the characters. But maybe that's not the point. Maybe we're supposed to just see these relationships as sketches; it was probably more successful on stage because theatre doesn't require the same kind of specificity as film does.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 13 January 2005 20:48 (twenty years ago)

Nobody seemed to like it but me. And Kyle.

It was good.

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:09 (twenty years ago)

My brother liked it a lot! We had a huge argument about it on Christmas Eve that my dad had to come in and mediate. (Actually, it was about more than just Closer, but that's what started it.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:14 (twenty years ago)

I liked it, good acting (except for Portman, per usual) and I enjoy 'stagey' movies. I wish I lived somewhere that I could see things like this on-stage.

One nerdy thing that annoyed me - Julia Roberts photographs Portman against the window using a Leica M6 (35mm), but the print in her exhibition is a 6x6 square image (not cropped, it was printed full-frame, probably 'done' with the Hasselblad she had in her studio).

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:19 (twenty years ago)

I don't usually post just to say I didn't like something -- cause that's annoying -- but this was honestly the worst movie I've ever seen with famous-actors-after-they're-famous. It was like an irritating student play by some sophomore who'd just discovered that sticking his dick into someone didn't make them perfect.

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:21 (twenty years ago)

oh milo you're such a "photgrapher"!

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:21 (twenty years ago)

I enjoyed the writing especially. Clive Owen was great.

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:22 (twenty years ago)

I'm starting to like theater and self-consciously "dramatic" dialogue! Great stuff!

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:23 (twenty years ago)

how is it pronounced?

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:24 (twenty years ago)

cloh-SAY. It's foreign.

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:25 (twenty years ago)

CL-OOOZ-URRR

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:25 (twenty years ago)

I love foregin things. They're so...different.

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:26 (twenty years ago)

I CAN'T TYPE ANYMORE :(

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:26 (twenty years ago)

Clive Owen was great.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:27 (twenty years ago)

"You writer"

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:28 (twenty years ago)

I still want to see this, as I am very interested in how plays transfer to the screen. Although it will make me hate people, I know.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:29 (twenty years ago)

Also: We Don't Live Here Anymore has a sort of similar plot but was better, I thought.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:29 (twenty years ago)

PLUS RUFFALO.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:29 (twenty years ago)

Ruffalo has fallen off

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:30 (twenty years ago)

It ain't a dramatization of the second Joy Division album = I shrug at it.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:30 (twenty years ago)

It is, actually. It's really SAD.

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:31 (twenty years ago)

But in a TRAGIC, BEAUTIFUL, HYPNOTIC way.

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:31 (twenty years ago)

ROFL @ RUFFALO '66

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:32 (twenty years ago)

RUFFALO '66 would be the BEST MOVIE EVER.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:34 (twenty years ago)

RUFFALO STANCE

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:35 (twenty years ago)

RUFFALO SOLDIERS

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:37 (twenty years ago)

Where The Ruffalo Roam

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:38 (twenty years ago)

It is, actually. It's really SAD.

Not in the way you mean it, I'll bet.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:41 (twenty years ago)

I thought it was hilarious when Natalie Portman's character said, "You can't cry in here," to Clive's character while they're in the strip club. I liked it okay. Clive Owen is hot, but he was pretty damn creepy in this film.

― jill schoelen is the queen of my dreams! (Homosexual II), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:55 (twenty years ago)

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drg500/g596/g59658feyik.jpg

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 13 January 2005 22:01 (twenty years ago)

RUFFALO RUFFALO

it looks a bit like that film with Nastaassia kinski and kyle mchlaclin and the other people. is it?

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 13 January 2005 22:16 (twenty years ago)

Do you like RUFFALO or something?

jed you won't like this...because I did.

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 January 2005 22:16 (twenty years ago)

The play was great. because of that, though, I don't really want to see the movie. Larry was played by someone profoundly unattractive - I now can't imagine someone that looks like Clive Owen playing the character, as it would change things a little much for my liking.

― lemin (lemin), Thursday, 13 January 2005 22:17 (twenty years ago)

I thought all the acting in it was splendid, Portman was really good and I'd pretty much written her off as a the next winona ryder (beautiful, talentless) after Garden State. I like movies where bad things happen to Jude Law, so I liked this.

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 13 January 2005 22:23 (twenty years ago)

Portman made me feel...comfortable.

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 January 2005 22:46 (twenty years ago)

adam, i don't think we often disagree on movies actually. you know i love RUFFALO.

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 13 January 2005 23:09 (twenty years ago)

just the Almodovar thing.

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 13 January 2005 23:10 (twenty years ago)

I was being "funny".

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 January 2005 23:10 (twenty years ago)

i totally didn't twig this was the Patrick Marber thing. the trailer makes it look pretty bad (Roberts AND Portman? come on...)

― Stevem On X (blueski), Thursday, 13 January 2005 23:11 (twenty years ago)

Well, neither of them are any good in it...

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 January 2005 23:14 (twenty years ago)

so is it like that movie with kinski kyle downey jr and snipes or not?

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 13 January 2005 23:15 (twenty years ago)

no surprises there adam.

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 13 January 2005 23:18 (twenty years ago)

ONE NIGHT STAND?

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 January 2005 23:18 (twenty years ago)

ummmm, the movie I mean. That wasn't a proposition.

― .adam (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 January 2005 23:18 (twenty years ago)

well there's the distance problem anyway. yeah that one.

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 13 January 2005 23:20 (twenty years ago)

Apart from Julia Roberts, who was just absolutely dreadful, the performances were great. I realy didn't like the script and I didn't think the ellipses worked. It's really hard to believe characters when you only see them at their most hysterical.

― C0L1N B--KETT, Friday, 14 January 2005 04:38 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 102 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

'TRT' was totally sympathetic, it was just 'whimsical'.

does 'laurel canyon' count? i hated that, too.

― gear (gear), Monday, 21 August 2006 19:25 (nineteen years ago)

I'd see this if they put Portman's nude scene into a Director's Cut.

― Danny Aioli (Rock Hardy), Monday, 21 August 2006 19:26 (nineteen years ago)

I don't get lumping Tenebaums in here: Tenenbaums is, if anything, really precious and whimsical, always devoted to its storybook vibe, whereas films like Closer (etc) want to be tense, gritty dramas (either realist ones or stylish ones -- Closer wants to be both of those at once). I can't see any significant connection between these things. (The characters are white, have money, live in cities, and have problems that are mostly social and not incredibly pressing or life-threatening: that's kind of true of most all movies, really.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 21 August 2006 19:27 (nineteen years ago)

That was an xpost past Gear -- exactly, it's sappy whimsy versus stuff that thinks it's cutting and dramatic.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 21 August 2006 19:28 (nineteen years ago)

'trt' otm re: mediocrity. definitely different in tone. it'd be more contemptuous if it wanted us to mock its characters, the whimsy all least makes it a little more digestible. 'closer' seems to be saying, 'these characters have problems, aren't they vile?'

― gear (gear), Monday, 21 August 2006 19:32 (nineteen years ago)

Can a movie be "tense" and "gritty" when it's based on a play?

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Monday, 21 August 2006 19:32 (nineteen years ago)

of course, why not?

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 21 August 2006 19:35 (nineteen years ago)

What were their problems, exactly? Part of the issue here is that I never got much sense that any of them really wanted to be with each other in any significant way. It seemed like endless wrangling over who would date who for a while. But like we're supposed to imagine either of them would stay with the photographer for more than, I dunno, a couple years?

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 21 August 2006 19:36 (nineteen years ago)

fuck 'edgy'

― Vacillatrix (x Jeremy), Monday, 21 August 2006 19:36 (nineteen years ago)

bored, amoral, upper middle class white couples cheat on one another and generally act like cunts. cf: your friends and neighbors, we don't live here anymore, closer, etc

This genre is more Updike, while Royal Tenenbaums is (obv.) Salinger.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 21 August 2006 19:36 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, plus endless sexual jealousy.

I liked the part where Jude Law turned to the camera and said "Man, I wish there were more than four characters in this, so I could just go date someone else."

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 21 August 2006 19:37 (nineteen years ago)

Hang on, that comment I made up there was totally stupid. I liked the Royal Tenenbaums because it was a well-observed comedy and it made me laugh. Sympathy and mockery come into it, but it isn't a 90-minute moan-fest like Closer apparently is.

My favourite current TV show btw is Arrested Development, which I absolutely adore for precisely those reasons. It's no sin.

― Scourage (Haberdager), Monday, 21 August 2006 19:38 (nineteen years ago)

The whole thing was like watching porn, only without sex

So this is why I love it. I think porn is GR34T, really.

Closer is a great movie. Definitely not my favourite movie, but seeing as I normally hate the actors involved in this movie, it was astounding that I liked it as much as I did.

Dude, you have no clue, have you? Natalie Portman is the one who finally loses the battle. She ends up utterly alone. It's about passion, revenge, (un)faithfullness,... It's nothing like porn.

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Monday, 21 August 2006 19:56 (nineteen years ago)

Portman starts alone, she ends alone, and everything about the film tells us that this was inevitable and that she embraced this fate, which makes it rather difficult for me to care. I think the writing is somewhat confused with regard to her, actually. We get the implication that she's constantly being used and consumed by the people around her (for books, for stripping, "giving her life to save others" like the Alice in the monument), and that she does this willingly, because she's actually the most honest and faithful of the bunch (never leaves the one she loves) -- but also that none of them actually know the real her, not even her name, and the only time she uses her real name is in a moment when she's getting used and consumed (while stripping, and with Larry). The fact that 98% of the dialogue she's given is coy, mannered nonsense just enhances the sense that we will never get through to figuring out who or what she is ... so, like, why do we care that she goes back to where she started from? What's gained or lost? Is her taking her name from the monument meant to suggest that she gave up herself to save Daniel-the-writer? Not in the end, certainly; he's far from saved. If she'd saved something about him, wouldn't it be in that first cut between scenes, when he has a book finished -- and wouldn't that make 90% of this movie pointless, just a voyeuristic leering at relationships getting fucked up stalling the point where we presumably realize something we knew all along about the very beginning? I don't know, and more importantly I just really didn't care, at any point in the film.

As for it being porny, it's a series of Intense Relationship vignettes, in which not much seems to be at stake beyond our own voyeurism -- the possible problem with which, even just as relationship-porn, is that what we're watching is less thrilling and more just depressing. People cheated and left each other, etc. I don't entirely get how it's "about" passion -- I see a lot of actors pretending to be passionate, but I don't see any of the characters having any real passion about one another. Law and Portman don't seem passionate. Law and Roberts just flirt for three minutes, kiss, and then claim to be passionate about one another. Owen seems passionate about something or other, but it seems more like he has personal issues than anything else.

I dunno, maybe it's trying to make some sort of point by having all of the real connections between people be mysterious, not a part of the story, kind of unguessable and far away -- like Larry, we have nothing but Daniel and Anna's word for it that they're in love. But if there's a point to that, it's not one that's been drawn out well enough for me to care about it.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 21 August 2006 20:51 (nineteen years ago)

I hate this movie so much. And I totally adore coy, mannered dialogue. The writing is so unbelievably bad. And Portman, ohmygod.

― horseshoe (horseshoe), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 00:36 (nineteen years ago)

ohmygod so hot as pink-haired stripperette, you mean?

― milo z (mlp), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 00:43 (nineteen years ago)

ohymygod so wooden even as she reveals herself to have a nice ass. (I was surprised by her ass.)

― horseshoe (horseshoe), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 00:45 (nineteen years ago)

http://home.online.no/~kgroenn/disney/pinocchio/pinocchio5.gif

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 00:56 (nineteen years ago)

This is my least favorite movie of all time. I sat through the whole thing only so I could claim it as my least favorite movie of all time.

― starke (starke), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 05:51 (nineteen years ago)

i actually gave up seeing movies after i saw this film. not seen a one since. that bad.

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 08:19 (nineteen years ago)

just a voyeuristic leering at relationships getting fucked up stalling the point where we presumably realize something we knew all along about the very beginning?

Aren't all movies voyeuristic? It's all about looking, no?

I loved the movie, but at the end of the day (or rather movie) it didn't really change my attitude about life, which is what great movies tend to do (for about five minutes and then life goes on regardless).

That said, I don't understand why people can hate it as much as they do. Baise Moi for example would make me gag, but Closer? Maybe I don't know enough about bad writing?

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 08:34 (nineteen years ago)

i mentioned above that portman's character made no sense, but nabisco spelled out the reeconciliable modes her character is supposed to occupy by turns. that sort of spelled doom for this film for me-- just the complete unreality, the stupid conceit, that was portman's character (she didn't do anything interesting as an actor to try to fill in the gaps, either). i didn't make the porn connection but like porn this film left me feeling somehow simultaneously bored, overstimulated, and depressed.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 09:06 (nineteen years ago)

er, irreconciliable

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 09:06 (nineteen years ago)

Good film, as I remember. Some enjoyable ding-dongs in there. I don't care that I don't care about the characters, nor am I hung up about them being "white" or wealthy or whiny. Though without Owen it would be dead.

As for "pretending to be passionate": a bit like this thread, really.

― David Orton (scarlet), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 12:31 (nineteen years ago)

oh you *would* like this.

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 12:33 (nineteen years ago)

i liked it. I like movies where bad things happen to Jude Law. I hate Jude Law.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 12:36 (nineteen years ago)

god tho the fist covered in blood line was a keeper, wasn't it?

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 16:31 (nineteen years ago)

hahahaha.
or the bit about how the best time a girl can have w/o taking her clothes off is by lying.
SO TRUE. SO MANY TRUTHS.

i actually enjoy this film.

― i've dreamt of rubies! (Mandee), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 16:43 (nineteen years ago)

four years pass...

oh my god this movie

― Princess TamTam, Sunday, 19 December 2010 10:10 (fifteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9PKyfkHZgU

― Princess TamTam, Sunday, 19 December 2010 10:11 (fifteen years ago)

epic tits

― Princess TamTam, Sunday, 19 December 2010 10:11 (fifteen years ago)

i don't remember a single thing about this movie

― akm, Monday, 20 December 2010 15:23 (fifteen years ago)

ten years pass...

Have been thinking about this film a lot, mainly because I’m always thinking about this film at least a little, but surprised to read the negative reactions upthread. Saw this in 2007 and instantly fell for it. It’s as cynical and depressing as anything you’ll see, but the patches of light - very fucking few and far between - are worth it.

I’ve never seen the play but am sure it’s meant to be a work of beginnings and endings of the various relationships - the end scene in New York (which iirc is a departure from the play in a sense that is is implied but it’s background knowledge in the play) is Alice/Jane breaking free from them all - for a short time.

Is it too cynical? Maybe. Even the most joyous scenes are tainted by damaged people doing damaging things and Closer is not so much the locked gaze as it is the look over the shoulder.

Agree with everyone upthread about “you writer” being funny, Portman and Owen obviously great but really enjoyed Julia Roberts. As someone (akm?) says upthread, there’s a lot of enjoyment to be derived from bad things happening to Jude Law in a film, and this film delivers hugely.

Favourite scenes? The strip club meeting between Alice and Larry (dark, bleak, full of sexual tension) and Dan meeting Larry at his office (the power dynamics here are so cruel but so lovingly rendered - they really cast Jude Law right just for this one scene).

It’s not a film you’d really want to watch regularly or if you’re inclined to misanthropy but it’s a well made and great looking thing about beautiful people doing appalling things to each other, and sometimes that’s what you want in a film.

― Scamp Granada (gyac), Sunday, 25 April 2021 19:08 (four years ago)

Still annoyed that Julia Roberts photographs Natalie Portman with a Leica and then the print at her exhibition is not just from a medium format negative but specifically a Hasselblad.

― Joe Bombin (milo z), Sunday, 25 April 2021 19:13 (four years ago)

Another Natalie Portman classic (Where The Heart Is) got this correct when she's using a Rolleiflex to drag herself out of poverty IIRC.

― Joe Bombin (milo z), Sunday, 25 April 2021 19:15 (four years ago)

Thanks for that scintillating analysis.

― Scamp Granada (gyac), Sunday, 25 April 2021 19:18 (four years ago)

That camera thing is the first (and fifth!) entry on the film's IMDB "Goofs" page.

― blue whales on ambient (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 25 April 2021 19:20 (four years ago)

I really liked this movie at the time

― brimstead, Sunday, 25 April 2021 19:46 (four years ago)

lol I mean I might still like it if I saw it now idk why I wrote “at the time”

― brimstead, Sunday, 25 April 2021 19:46 (four years ago)

my main takeaway from this at the time was "I hate all of these people and I resent having to spend two hours watching them" but maybe I would feel differently now, who knows

― Camaraderie at Arms Length, Sunday, 25 April 2021 20:06 (four years ago)

Julie Burchill was a strong champion of the stage play of this at the time iirc. And also my partner bought the Marber stage play book in paperback for some strange reason at the time and it is still on our bookshelf!

― calzino, Sunday, 25 April 2021 20:26 (four years ago)

lol also still got Closer by Dennis Cooper on there

― calzino, Sunday, 25 April 2021 20:41 (four years ago)

I don’t remember what movie this was at all and I commented on it.

― akm, Sunday, 25 April 2021 23:37 (four years ago)

Jude Law is pretty and dumb, Julia Roberts is pretty and smart, Clive Owen is rough and narcissistic, Natalie Portman is the least believable erotic dancer in history.

― Joe Bombin (milo z), Monday, 26 April 2021 00:12 (four years ago)

I wish they'd stuck with Anna Friel; she had Portman's part in the play on Broadway.

― piscesx, Monday, 26 April 2021 00:16 (four years ago)

I was so into Natalie Portman in the early 00s and I had convinced myself that she was bad in Star Wars because of the material, but then this movie came out and I had no illusions any more.

― keto keto bonito v industry plant-based diet (PBKR), Monday, 26 April 2021 00:33 (four years ago)

It's...terrible. I blame the play, which, like Virginia Woolf relies on actors playing snapping turtles. I didn't believe Natalie Portman for a moment. Clive Owen is best in show.

This sort of thing attracted Mike Nichols.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 26 April 2021 00:36 (four years ago)

I love Virginia Woolf; I see your point, but there is also a difference between 1966 and 2004. Do you not like Virginia Woolf either Alfred?

― keto keto bonito v industry plant-based diet (PBKR), Monday, 26 April 2021 00:42 (four years ago)

As a play, which I've seen a couple times locally, it's a fine queer bitch fest.

The film gets sodden, though I accept the Battlin' Burtons and their performances.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 26 April 2021 00:47 (four years ago)

My only real acting performance was in 9th grade as Peter in The Zoo Story, so I've got a soft spot for Albee.

― keto keto bonito v industry plant-based diet (PBKR), Monday, 26 April 2021 01:01 (four years ago)

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