Closer

[tpfkabi]

she did an interview on Letterman not too long ago and i believe she addressed the nudity on there. unfortunately my comment is useless as i have forgotten what was said  but i did record it and i might revisit and come back with some info

[jasper_window]

some films become dcefined by shit like that.  "hey natalie portman's naked in this film, and Chloe Sevingy goes down on Vincent Gallo in the brown bunny" and it takes away from the film as a whole.

Isn't that our problem?

Yeah.  That's what I was trying to say.

[atticus jones]

ode to the unexperienced...shut the fuck up/until youve banged a stripper/throw your hands up/if you know how to tip her/drop yo head down/if the stripper was nasty/flipped yo smile round/when you found out too lasty/as in weeks player/few tweaks later slayer/the steadies shaky skater/programs shady mayor/but you wasnt there was you/doesnt care or matter cuz you/couldnt fathom or wonder/the chasm or the blunder/
which has properly numbed her/sent your ship all asunder/so shut the fuck up/and keep livin through movies/suck your life up/watchin pussies and boobies/dreamin lives you cant live/creamin wives who wont give/peaks of skin and pubescence/in sweet celluloid presents

what you want...you cant have...what you have...you dont want...

if you got what you wanted...you'd soon not want what you gotted

and then it rains

[Gamblour.]

This movie was incredible, I just kept turning to my friend and saying that. The dialogue is so well written, the movie balanced being funny and being dramatic extremely well.

[Myxo]

A stripper that doesn't take her clothes off in a movie about sex is like a soldier who doesn't come under fire in a movie about war.  Sure, there's a story there.  But an air of inauthenticity lingers.

Shit or get off the pot I believe is the phrase we're looking for.

;)

[grand theft sparrow]

A stripper that doesn't take her clothes off in a movie about sex is like a soldier who doesn't come under fire in a movie about war.  Sure, there's a story there.  But an air of inauthenticity lingers.

Shit or get off the pot I believe is the phrase we're looking for.

;)

That's a good way of putting it.

And your avatar goes very nicely with that sentiment.

[ono]

Closer is an empty shell of a movie.  Nothing is explained, everything is taken at face value, and emotions and motives can be turned on and off with the ease and speed of the flick of a switch.

There is nothing real or human about the emotions of anyone in this film.  Most people don't behave like this, and I'd hate to meet ones who do.  It's almost as bad as a LaBute movie (except the characters are all slime).  But in this case, it's just the men, which is where the comparison to LaBute comes in.  Solondz might be another accurate comparison, though, sans sarcasm and irony.  In the end, everyone has fucked everyone, and everyone is left empty as a result.

There were a few shining moments in the film that didn't make me hate it totally.  While most of the dialogue was really quite unrealistic and unfocused, there were a few memorable, well-played/written/directed exchanges.  Unfortunately, these exchanges moved a bit too fast for me to record in my mind verbatim what the lines and exchanges were that I truly loved.  And the film did leave the indelible impression in our minds of Julia Roberts getting it in the face from Jude Law.  But still, this whole thing was just very contrived, and tried too hard, from the opening sequence.  "Hello, stranger?"  After you've been hit by a car?  Okay.  These people can't make up their minds, and Jane at the end there, just decides she doesn't love Law's character because he wants to hear the truth from her.  Again.  Okay.

I guess the whole tone the movie tried to project on to me bounced off and made me regurgitate any profundities I may have otherwise absorbed.  Come to think of it, I have yet to see a great relationship movie, a great adult drama, that is purely about relationships, leaving me to believe that if a movie is only about one thing, and it tackles the subject in an overt manner, it will fail, because there is nothing else there to anchor the story.

I'm curious about the "final shot" that everyone is saying is so brilliant?  The passport?  The stone in the wall with Alice's name on it?  Jane walking down the street in that white tank top in slow motion, her breasts bouncing up and down and guys turning around to stare at her?  I didn't see the brilliance in any of those things.

EDIT: Just wanted to add that I remembered one of the things that turned me off to this movie so much.  It was the questions.  "Was it good?  Did you come?  Better than with me?  Blah, blah, blah, orgasm-cakes."  These are the questions that immature, insecure high school students just experimenting and learning about sex might ask.  'Cause we're all that inadequate, inexperienced, and ill-advised when it comes to the subject, right?  And that's what makes this so "real."  (My tongue is firmly in cheek, my eyes almost falling out of their sockets from rolling around so much.)  Maybe I'm just a little more mature than these people and that's why I didn't like this flick.  Because these people are stupid.  They care so much about how their "other"s have fucked another person, and they care so much about the quality of these fucks, when if they really loved their "other," it wouldn't be an issue.  And that's what killed Dan's and Alice/Jane's relationship.

[El Duderino]

Jane walking down the street in that white tank top in slow motion, her breasts bouncing up and down and guys turning around to stare at her?

i just thought it was well shot. the ending and the beginning shots kinda made the movie for me. can't really explain it.

[UncleJoey]

I really enjoyed this film. I felt it was really honest about the way it dealt with relationships, jealousy, lust, etc. Aside from a few awkward moments early in the film, the dialogue was exceptional. All of the perfomances were solid, but I was especially impressed with Clive Owen. All in all, I'd probably give it an A-.

[samsong]

I'm with wantautopia on this one, I felt Closer was empty and ultimately pointless.  Kudos to the guy who wrote the play (I couldn't care less about him) and Mike Nichols for portraying relationships with the kind of "honesty" that they do but a shallow narrative about shallow people doesn't make for a good film; this is one of those cases where the form fitting the content doesn't exactly work.  These people aren't characters but caricatures and obvious devices to evoke a certain thought or emotion, thus losing any sense of complexity.  Closer leaves nothing to the imagination -- well, except for the things I wanted it to be explicit about like NAKED NATALIE PORTMAN -- and is, in my opinion, a preachy morality tale without any real morals except that it frowns on lying.  The supposed insight about relationships in the film is incredibly literal and simpleminded, and not in a poignantly simple way either.  Nichol's lack of subtlety in his direction makes me really sad; it only reminds me of how far he's fallen since, well, The Graduate.  I haven't seen Angels in America yet so I'll still hold out hope but Closer is an omen to the demise of a once-great artist.

[grand theft sparrow]

THERE MAY BE THINGS CONSIDERED MINOR SPOILERS IN HERE - TREAD LIGHTLY

if a movie is only about one thing, and it tackles the subject in an overt manner, it will fail, because there is nothing else there to anchor the story.

Just wanted to say "Good call" on that.  There's only so much you can do with a film that's about sex; Girl 6 is a perfect example.  You'll get that occasional one, like sex lies and videotape, but I don't think there's anything new to be said on film about normal sexual relations between consenting adults, which might have been why I was a little disappointed by Closer.

I'm curious about the "final shot" that everyone is saying is so brilliant?  The passport?  The stone in the wall with Alice's name on it?  Jane walking down the street in that white tank top in slow motion, her breasts bouncing up and down and guys turning around to stare at her?  I didn't see the brilliance in any of those things.

Other than the fact that Natalie Portman was stunning in that final shot, I don't get the big deal about it either.  Not that it was a poor choice of image to end on but it didn't kick my ass.  And since it never felt like it was her movie, why end on her?  I think a more interesting final shot, for example, would have been Jude Law's POV catching the eyes of several attractive women as he walks down the street; I think that would have made more sense considering that his actions set everything in the movie in motion.  Ending on Natalie is fine but it doesn't come close to holding up against the look that Claudia gives the camera at the end of Magnolia or Celine dancing at the end of Before Sunset or the door closing on Kay at the end of The Godfather.

These are the questions that immature, insecure high school students just experimenting and learning about sex might ask.  'Cause we're all that inadequate, inexperienced, and ill-advised when it comes to the subject, right?  And that's what makes this so "real."

I got news for you.  You never stop asking those questions.  It's not an issue of maturity, it's just plain old human insecurity.  If your significant other is cheating on you, you want to know why.  We may not be inadequate or inexperienced when it comes to sex but all of us are when it comes to love, whether you're in a happy relationship or not.  You can only learn so much and what you learn, you may decide to ignore at times.  In the scene when Julia Roberts confesses to Clive Owen, I thought his reaction was the most real thing in the movie.

[UncleJoey]

I got news for you.  You never stop asking those questions.  It's not an issue of maturity, it's just plain old human insecurity.  If your significant other is cheating on you, you want to know why.  We may not be inadequate or inexperienced when it comes to sex but all of us are when it comes to love, whether you're in a happy relationship or not.  You can only learn so much and what you learn, you may decide to ignore at times.  In the scene when Julia Roberts confesses to Clive Owen, I thought his reaction was the most real thing in the movie.

Well put.

[mutinyco]

The final shot is brilliant. Not for its technique. Not for its look. But for its depth. In slo-mo, Jane, with her hair growing back in, is walking through Times Square, attracting head-turns from passing men.

First, its a perfect bookend, as the opening shot was of her walking down a London Street. What's happening in this final shot is that we're witnessing first hand men's sexual objectification of women. The film is about, to a large extent, the way that men create fantasies of their women without ever really knowing who they are. During that opening sequence, Larry spends the entire day with Jane before he finally even asks her name. And when he does, she gives him a fake name. His fantasy proceeds into the form of a novel he writes about somebody he doesn't even really know -- it's his idea of who she is. Even when she tells Dan her real name at the strip club, he doesn't believe her. He wants his idea of her reality, as Alice -- and even argues with her as a stripper about who she is. He does what all men really want in their fantasy, and that's to totally dominate their woman. The only person to capture the real Jane is Anna, who takes a photograph of her crying. The men, so self-absorbed, never even inquire as to what made her cry? So self-absorbed with their fantasies that Dan actually goes to meet a "woman" he chatted with online, completely ignorant that it was really a man.

So, that final shot. "Jane walking down the street in that white tank top in slow motion, her breasts bouncing up and down and guys turning around to stare at her?" Exactly my point.

What are the men looking at? A sex object. They're not really interested in who she is. It's her exterior. Same with the men in the audience. And to take it a step further, it's "Natalie Portman". Who's Natalie Portman? I don't know. I have an image of her as an actress and celebrity, but not of the "real" person.

I wonder whether this shot was staged, or did Nichols simply film her walking down the street recording genuine reactions? If he did that, he is brilliant, because not only would it represent everything I've already said, it would illustrate it without staged manipulation. Either way, it still works. This single shot sums up the film.

[Ghostboy]

/\ What he said.

Had to've been staged though. Otherwise people would have looked at the camera before/after looking at Natalie.

[Jeremy Blackman]

Had to've been staged though. Otherwise people would have looked at the camera before/after looking at Natalie.

Well since I've already spoiled the ending and the beginning for myself, I'll jump in.

A Natalie Portman stalker fan website has on-set pictures of (I'm assuming) the scene you're talking about at the bottom of this page. It looks extremely un-staged.