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Closer: Lust at First Sight?
By Beth Dozier
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“If you believe in love at first sight, you never stop looking”
Although disguised as a romance, Mike Nichols’ Closer (2004) is in reality a “lust” story that exposes the ugly underbelly of love. The film follows two couples as they choose and change partners, treating each other like pawns in some carnal contest. For the characters, faithfulness to oneself trumps fidelity to another; the urge to take becomes more powerful than the will to give.
The drama amongst the foursome begins when Dan (Jude Law), an obituary writer for a London newspaper and a struggling novelist, saves Alice, a former stripper, (Natalie Portman) from a traffic accident. After a year passes, and their romance supposedly blooms, Dan is photographed by Anna (Julia Roberts) for his book cover. Despite his relationship with Alice, Dan feels an instant attraction to Anna, but she rejects him, prompting Dan to viciously set her up with Dr. Larry (Clive Owen), a rough-mannered dermatologist. And, despite Dan’s nasty intentions, Larry and Anna become a couple.
The story gets more complicated as the former strangers suffer betrayal and jealousy as a result of their infidelity and dishonesty. In fact, honesty is a trait that all of the characters lack. When Alice questions Anna’s apparent attraction to Dan, Anna replies, “I’m not a thief.” She is, of course. It seems that she and Dan cannot help themselves, as if betrayal comes more naturally than honesty. Everyone has something to hide, and even being in love with someone does not guarantee true openness. Perhaps that’s the point the film is trying to make. “Tell me the truth,” Dan says at one point, “because without it, we're animals.” And they are.
The only time in which the characters are truly honest is in finally admitting their betrayals. One can’t help but cringe as Anna graphically responds to Larry’s piercing questions about the nature of her affair. Anna’s honesty is as brutal as her unfaithfulness.
Closer implies that underneath all pretenses, people are naturally conniving and egotistical, a conclusion which turns “love” into nothing more than an arbitrary combination of emotions leading to some state of self-awareness.
I’m not, however, questioning the film’s artistic merit. The screenplay is witty, clever, and remarkably candid. Watching Closer feels like a real invasion of privacy, as if the audience were given an intrusive view into the birth and death of a relationship - something that only the two people involved should share.
When I asked a friend of mine why she thought Closer was so brilliant, she replied, “It’s beautiful because it’s true.” As Alice points out at a photography exhibit, however: "The art is a lie - bunch of sad strangers photographed beautifully. All the glittering assholes who appreciate art say it's beautiful because that's what they want to see, but the people in the photos are sad and alone. The pictures make the world seem beautiful so the exhibition is reassuring which makes it a lie, and everyone loves a big fat lie." So it is with Closer. Nichols takes four realistic characters and turns their destructive lives into a work of art, asking the audience to somehow find beauty in their pain.
I just couldn’t do it.
Like the photography exhibit in the movie, Closer may accurately represent reality in art form, but that reality is not pretty. Let’s not fool ourselves with the “big fat lie” that says it is. Art may imitate reality, but that doesn’t make it beautiful.
(Paul: On this one, I guess I have to disagree with the old Keats assertion that truth is beauty? Or maybe Closer just isn’t true to me).
Posted by Beth Dozier at August 2, 2005 10:13 AM
Comments
Hmmm... I disagree with your friend. I found the characters to be caricatures, quite unrealistic. Not much different than the truly evil bad guy in many films; he's just there to scare, nobody is really that evil. But they represent, perhaps, proclivities in all of us that when left unchecked lead to the destruction and misery they experience in Closer. So maybe that's what she means by "true?"
Posted by: Bill S at August 7, 2005 10:52 PM
Yeah, an interesting question, to what degree this film captures reality. Obviously, it's supposed to suggest more than itself. Instead of a title like _Dan and Anna_, or _Alice and Larry_, we're given this infinitely evocative, ambiguous adverb that asks this film to be taken as representative of any and all attempts to get "closer." I agree with Bill that these characters seem oddly one-dimensional, in part because the plot itself seems so. Little action or character development, just a series of vignettes that, while partially true, lack the context that would make them feel real.
Posted by: Paul Marchbanks at August 8, 2005 8:27 AM
I believe my friend meant that the film was truthful in the way that it portrayed the capacity for people to use love for self-gratification. Having been hurt in relationships similar to those in the film, she was just glad to see a movie without the "happily ever after" that exists in most romances but more seldom in life.
I don't think the characters are completely evil, just extremely capable of being evil. Again, we only see the births and deaths of the relationships and a few definitive moments sprinkled in between. The film leaves out the growth of the relationships themselves and therefore the more benevolent moments that the characters are bound to have. There are no sonnets or long walks on the beach. Nichols cuts the relational development and shows them at their absolute worst, especially Larry, who has the almost instantaneous ability to change from a relatively normal individual to a sexual psychopath.
Nichols uses the nasty behavior to show that although we like to think of love as something that sets us apart from animals, for some people it can bring out the absolute worst, self-serving of actions. The film lets the audience see what propriety prevents them from witnessing in reality- a "closer" look at the human condition as well as love (or at least what the characters believe to be love, which is another question all together). Under Nichols’ harsh magnifying glass, even love - the pinnacle of human emotion - can be subject to perversion.
Posted by: Beth Dozier at August 8, 2005 5:11 PM