Closer: Why Your Favorite Movie is Lame

While reading Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", late in the novel, Joyce reviews his own book, claiming true art is best when it arises no passion in it's reader and can be appreciated only for its artistry. This revelation bites heavily into the reader's enjoyment of the book - if you were ever moved by a part of the book, then you had read it wrong.

As a lesser writer, Closer's author, was forced into self-deprication to indulge his vanity and review his own work on screen, having his trampled flower bemoan how all art is supposed to be sad to be beautiful but the people are still sad, so it is not beautiful. And in one scene, everything that is right and wrong with Closer is on display - the set up is strong, the picture of herself crying taken by the woman who has caused these tears, shared with this woman's lover. But the delivery is wordy and trite, forced to hear the scene's punch through the author's whiny reflections rather than to see it and know it. In this, the author reveals his arrogance - that his words are better than the scene (they aren't) and that his audience is much dumber than he is (we aren't).

First the basics - the film is in fact quite obviously a play since it is driven by dialogue rather than action. It was clearly penned by a long-struggling author with a bit of flare and wit, but one completely self-absorbed.

The cast almost entirely reads of the artist's artist's conceits - the struggling author, the trampled woman of the night, the falsely sophisticated art docent. It is only Clive Owen's porn-obsessed doctor who breaks new ground, but in this case the character feels false and only squeaks by thanks to a strong performance by Owen. All of the characters are too witty for their own good, written to indulge the author's strongest skill rather than to fit the character itself. Though Owen is very good, his character isn't working class enough...every character becomes a psychiatrist as they wander their way through the reams of dialogue.

Julia Roberts seems to have either not been up for such wordiness, or to have successfully convinced the director to leave out her dialogue. Her role is effectively understated in comparison to the rest. Her effectiveness in the role is still bothersome - the queen of Hollywood is far too comfortable in the role of the film's weakest character, a tawdry and weak woman masquerading as a sophisticate. The power women of Hollywood past could never have played the role, for they chew up the screen and the characters around them. Roberts' skill actually diminishes her star.

The same goes for Jude Law, who once again looks the part of a dashing movie star, but plays the role of a weak and flighty cad. Since this is the role Law always plays, with the exception of woefully chosen turns in Spielberg movies, we can assume that Law will never be a true picture star, merely something for the girls to look at.

Finally there is Natalie Portman, cast against type because she's trying to reprove herself and wash the Star Wars out of her hair. Unfortunately, she hasn't been around long enough to prove herself a first time and we're left with a rather shallow performance that could have done with less dialogue and false wit.

The film occaisonally makes attempts at turning the setting into art, but never quite gets it right. There is almost no cinematographic artistry to bring the movie home as something beautiful, most probably because the director was too in love with the psychosexual dialogue to spend much time making a picture. This is an egregious error in a love-story/drama/independent work, but a love story especially, because our notions of love or so intimately tied with beauty.

The above referenced scene, with Portman looking at her own photo, is a clear example - are we left with a timeless image of the moment, something like Anita Ekberg's moment in the fountains from La Dolce Vita? No, what we remember is her flat delivery of an airless line about the nature of art. Other scenes are lifted from the film's intellectual forebears, most notably Law and Portman's final split being an almost exact replica of the superior Les Mepris (Contempt).

And finally, the movie is only as big as its characters and its drama. Unfortunately, these are all characters who we are assumed to have a too easy sympathy for. Since we never fall in love with them, and move so quickly into the betrayals, we do not care for them or about them. They are all, in their own way, weak and tawdry human beings for whom we develop no awe to displace this lack of sympathy. All that's left is what intellectual sustenance we may find, and though there is some, there is not enough to make the film great.