CLOSER but no cigar

When PULP FICTION hit the scene it was inevitable that we would be treated to a string of pulp crime sprees and rat-a-tat-tat pop diatribes. When THE MATRIX overpowered THE PHANTOM MENACE, we saw a surge in wire work in every major action film. What I didn’t expect to see was a Neill LaBute ripple.

Now I like LaBute’s work (especially his early funny stuff). It’s raw in an age of over - political correctness. CLOSER, it seems, was the London theater circuit’s answer to LaBute’s sensibility. The film tries to follow suit.

Two couples (Jude Law & Natalie Portman versus Clive Owen & Julia Roberts) either through lust, insecurity, perversion or vengeance end up literally and figuratively screwing each other over. A lot of frank venom and words that rhyme with “punt” and “watt” are tossed at each other. All this cursing is there to show us how hip the script is. How unafraid writer Patrick Marber is of taboos sexual and social (we already know director Mike Nichols has no qualms here...see CARNAL KNOWLEDGE. You’d be better off.) Could this be the new punk?

Yawn!

I’m no prude when it comes to language (or anything else for that matter). To paraphrase INHERIT THE WIND, “I think language is a poor enough means of communication. We should use every word we damn well need.” The problem is that normal people don’t throw these words around as easily as the characters of CLOSER. It’s equally inconceivable that they would sleep with / cheat on each other in such a flip flop manner. Sure Dan (Law) is empty and insecure and craves the power sexual conquest gives him. What’s Anna’s (Roberts) excuse for being attracted to such a desperate loser? Maybe it’s because Julia, no matter how much you try to sully her up, always comes off as Miss Perfect. We never find out what Anna’s actual flaw is, oustide of needing sex with wankers. One wonders what the film would be like if Cate Blanchett was able to play Anna, as was intended. Alas, even Miss Cate could not save this movie.

These characters are more medium rare than raw. They are sexy (at least the actors themselves are). None of them are believable. The only one that comes close is Clive Owen’s Larry (God damn, I want him to be the next James Bond!). The depravity of his jealousy is exactly how base a man can get when faced with a cheating wife. His vindictiveness. His clasping at any sexual confidence he can nab. Even if it comes from a stripper...who just happens to be the ex-girl of the guy who screwed his wife. Natch!

With CLOSER, you get all this emptiness plus a twist ending which is is so shallow in its profundity that I skinned my knees on the bottom. Some defenders of this film will say, “This is the whole point of the film, Frank. That these people are so unappealing it’s impossible for them to get “closer” to anyone.”

Yawn, again.