Closer (2004)
Directed by Mike Nichols
The relationships of two couples become complicated and deceitful when the man from one couple meets the woman of the other.
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Nichols has traversed this territory before, in his film of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and in his coolly savage "Carnal Knowledge."
But what better director than Nichols -- the man who brought us "Carnal Knowledge" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" -- to explore the dark recesses of the human heart?
Venturing back into Carnal Knowledge territory, Nichols zaps Patrick Marber's stage play with a jolt of star power and cinematic sophistication, crisscrossing the love lives of four strangers in London: an obituary writer, Dan (Jude Law); a stripper, Alice (Natalie Portman); a photographer, Anna (Julia Roberts); and a doctor, Larry (Clive Owen).
"Catch 22," "Carnal Knowledge," "Silkwood," "The Birdcage," "Primary Colors" and this past years HBO triumph, "Angels in America."
Nichols, who's been exploring the dark divide between men and women (and love and sex) since "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Carnal Knowledge," does near-miraculous work here.
Throughout, he offers a whiff of his 1971 movie, "Carnal Knowledge," which mirrors "Closer" in content.
The picture loosened the old form of film censorship's hold on the motion picture industry (to pave the way for new censorship, natch), but its most enduring legacy could be the popularization of the cinematographer-as-voyeur. Of Albee's direct lineage, Patrick Marber's ( Closer , Notes on a Scandal) scripts come closest to recreating the tableau morte of Virginia Woolf?, but looking at the way that both of Marber's pictures flag in the third act while most crucially failing to un-flesh the sympathetic humanity in his icy necropsies highlights the brilliance of Nichols' (an acclaimed theatre vet making his debut here, with his next stop The Graduate), merciless dissection of the intellectual's disease of ennui and gamesmanship.
Nichols has traversed this territory before, in his film of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and in his coolly savage "Carnal Knowledge."
But what better director than Nichols -- the man who brought us "Carnal Knowledge" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" -- to explore the dark recesses of the human heart?
Nichols, who's been exploring the dark divide between men and women (and love and sex) since "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Carnal Knowledge," does near-miraculous work here.
Nichols once electrified and frequently upset the movie-going world with works like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate, Carnal Knowledge and Catch-22.
Director Mike Nichols is, of course, no stranger to this sort of thing, having explored similar territory in 1966 with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
His second film, "The Graduate," earned him the Academy Award for Best Director and made Dustin Hoffman a star.
The cunning direction of Nichols ( "The Graduate," "Carnal Knowledge," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf") viscerally plugs into the emotional voltage of these edgy, passionate, dishonest, desperate, sometimes sweet but often brutally frank relationships in almost every scene.
Nichols once electrified and frequently upset the movie-going world with works like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate, Carnal Knowledge and Catch-22.
Nichols, who brilliantly dissected a collapsing marriage in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and turned American morals inside out in "The Graduate" and "Carnal Knowledge" over 30 years ago, tears into this material with both hands, pushing his cast to their emotional limits as the misery-go-round turns again and again.
Directing the incredible cast of four into their sexual frenzy is Mike Nichols, who is the master of the risky sex film and has been since he first dropped the bomb in the later 60’s with “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “The Graduate.”
Based on the play by Patrick Marber and directed by none other than Mike Nichols ("The Graduate," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"), the movie follows the romantic intersections, as it were, of four people in London over the course of several years.
Unfortunately, despite Nichols' great record at adapting plays to film -- "Wit" and "Angels in America" -- "Closer" never completely loses its feeling of being a stage production.
What’s more unfortunate is that this is a film that deserves admiration in so many ways, guided by Nichols after two successful stage-to-small screen adaptations of “Wit” and “Angels in America” and a truly inspired performance from Clive Owen.
The couples are played by an impeccable cast: Jude Law, Clive Owen, Natalie Portman and Julia Roberts, directed by the illustrious Mike Nichols, who's been on a small-screen roll lately with Emmy-winning adaptations of "Wit" and "Angels in America."
Academy Award winning director Mike Nichols has made a successful career out of transitioning stage to film and television; in particular, "Angels in America," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Wit."
With this in mind, the behind-the-scenes battle between up-and-coming actors to land a part in Mike Nichols' latest film, Closer--in which the respected, award-friendly director adapts a notoriously controversial play where every single character has an aura of 40-weight Valvoline--must have been legendary.
"Catch 22," "Carnal Knowledge," "Silkwood," "The Birdcage," "Primary Colors" and this past years HBO triumph, "Angels in America."
The latest work from Mike Nichols, director of "The Graduate," "Silkwood," and "Working Girl," dissects modern romance with a plastic spoon.
Nichols once electrified and frequently upset the movie-going world with works like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate, Carnal Knowledge and Catch-22.
"Catch 22," "Carnal Knowledge," "Silkwood," "The Birdcage," "Primary Colors" and this past years HBO triumph, "Angels in America."
It's ironic and encouraging to find that, after years of making so-so movies like Wolf, The Birdcage and Regarding Henry, 73-year-old Mike Nichols has made one of the most daring films of the year.
And he's been triumphant in dealing with complex issues involving sex and relationships with films like "The Graduate," "Postcards from the Edge," and "The Birdcage."
As a consolation prize, she was allowed to write the screenplays for two Nichols films, the despicable The Birdcage and Primary Colors.
He's been reaching a renewed artistic maturity in recent years, though, with such solid pictures as "The Birdcage" and "Primary Colors" reaching the wide screen.
"Catch 22," "Carnal Knowledge," "Silkwood," "The Birdcage," "Primary Colors" and this past years HBO triumph, "Angels in America."
Director Mike Nichols (“Primary Colors”) accentuates this approach, ignoring character development and flashing forward in time to juxtapose the sweet beginnings with the bitter endings, casting both as equally fake and empty.
He's been reaching a renewed artistic maturity in recent years, though, with such solid pictures as "The Birdcage" and "Primary Colors" reaching the wide screen.
And he's been triumphant in dealing with complex issues involving sex and relationships with films like "The Graduate," "Postcards from the Edge," and "The Birdcage."
It's ironic and encouraging to find that, after years of making so-so movies like Wolf, The Birdcage and Regarding Henry, 73-year-old Mike Nichols has made one of the most daring films of the year.
The latest work from Mike Nichols, director of "The Graduate," "Silkwood," and "Working Girl," dissects modern romance with a plastic spoon.
It's ironic and encouraging to find that, after years of making so-so movies like Wolf, The Birdcage and Regarding Henry, 73-year-old Mike Nichols has made one of the most daring films of the year.
When their cheating comes out in the open, Larry goes to a strip club and inadvertently runs into Alice -- and on, and on, like a snide British version of La Ronde (1950).
Owen�s Larry is the "doctor" (a dermatologist! as in "skin deep?"); rounding out the team are Julia Roberts as Anna, the "photographer" who, in the words of Alice, "the stripper" played by Natalie Portman (prancing in Victoria�s Secret skivvies and the pink wig from Ken Russell�s Crimes of Passion), makes pictures of sad strangers look beautiful so we can feel reassured about life.
Like Carnal Knowledge (which some consider Nichols’s best film, written—interestingly enough—by Jules Feiffer, who also wrote Popeye , which some consider Altman’s worst film), Closer is self-consciously hip, and like the more organic We Don’t Live Here Anymore earlier this year, both play and film could just as easily have been called The Rules of the Game, because Marber and Nichols (like Larry Goss) generate considerable excitement from watching people betray each other.
British star Clive Owen, of "The Bourne Identity" and "Gosford Park," as a physician who gets involved with all of them.
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A Martian watching Closer (or In the Company of Men or Your Friends & Neighbors) would conclude that human reproduction is a distasteful duty.
Again, we have a much cleverer precedent for this with Neil LaBute's masterful In the Company of Men (1997).
A Martian watching Closer (or In the Company of Men or Your Friends & Neighbors) would conclude that human reproduction is a distasteful duty.
Closer is akin to one of Woody Allen's serious films, such as Hannah and Her Sisters and Husbands and Wives.
Closer is akin to one of Woody Allen's serious films, such as Hannah and Her Sisters and Husbands and Wives.
Nichols refuses to move in closer to find whispers or silence to replace this, nor does he move back and take a post-modern approach, as did the brilliant Vanya on 42nd Street (1994).
Like Carnal Knowledge (which some consider Nichols’s best film, written—interestingly enough—by Jules Feiffer, who also wrote Popeye , which some consider Altman’s worst film), Closer is self-consciously hip, and like the more organic We Don’t Live Here Anymore earlier this year, both play and film could just as easily have been called The Rules of the Game, because Marber and Nichols (like Larry Goss) generate considerable excitement from watching people betray each other.
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Set in an unnaturally quiet London, "Closer" often seems like a contemporary variation on "Dangerous Liaisons," although no one here experiences even a taste of the joyful malevolence or the smug self-satisfaction that Valmont and Merteuil gleaned from their string of conquests and seductions in 1780s France.
Their ruthlessness and self-destructive game-playing is from the Dangerous Liaisons and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Compare the film to something like the infinitely hotter In the Mood For Love , where the impossible love of two people mirrors the impossible social upheavals of a nation, and Closer‘s nonchalance becomes more obvious.