Review: 'Closer' gets a little too close

Posted Tuesday, March 29, 2005 at 2:49 PM Central

by John Couture

There is such a thing as too close for comfort and this week’s Closer straddles that line on numerous occasions. As individual performances go, Natalie Portman’s Alice and Clive Owen’s Larry were two of the best in the business last year as documented with their Golden Globe wins and Oscar nominations, but something is missing, perhaps perspective, from being so close to everything.

Closer is adapted from a Patrick Marber stage play and you can painfully tell throughout the movie that certain conventions from the stage just don’t transfer well to the big screen. The story follows the lives and twisted love lives of four adults in London. The main characters are Alice, the stripper with the heart of gold, and Dan, an aspiring writer stuck in a dead-end job (pun intended) writing obituaries, and Anna, a photographer with a wandering eye and Larry, a doctor who seemingly can have it all, but can’t seem to hold onto it.

The movie basically cuts out all the boring stuff and you are left with just the interesting things: the introductions, the sex and the painful breakups. Without any time to develop character and given that each person is best known for their ability to scheme and lie, it’s not surprising that some performances stand out over others. Julia Roberts’ Anna never really had a chance to grow and because of the quick cuts between her sequences, you never really come to understand the motivation behind her actions. Likewise, Jude Law’s Dan, while easily securing the most screen time of any of the actors, suffers from having to put too many faces forward. You are never quite sure where his true loyalties lie.

Ultimately, the performances of Portman and Owen save this movie from Gigli status, but it’s definitely not a movie that you would want to watch more than once. Some scenes are brilliant, such as the cyber sex banter between Dan and Larry and Alice and Dan’s ride on the double decker bus, but ultimately, this is just another case of a good stage play that should have stayed on the stage.

VIDEO As a Superbit entry, Closer really shows well on DVD. In particular, the scenes in the aquarium and the strip club are lush and vibrant where an inferior product may have muddled the background here. Unfortunately, there is very little action in the movie that makes you realize that you are watching the superior video quality that the Superbit brand brings.

The transfer is in great condition and the natural skin tones and subtle color gradients shine through perfectly.

AUDIO Again, the Superbit quality is a nice touch, especially since the majority of this movie is dialog driven. The few musical cues, particularly the haunting Damien Rice song “The Blower’s Daughter” that puts the movie into play, are spot on.

Both the 5.1 Dolby Digital and DTS tracks deliver crisp dialog and ambient sound throughout the film. In particular, the sound mixing in the strip club scenes were balanced well and flowed seamlessly with the rest of the movie. Usually, directors make a conscious decision to present jarring musical transitions to scenes like a strip club to augment the shocking aspect of them. Here, the subtle movement between the scenes show how easily the characters are able to slip in and out of this environment.

SPECIAL FEATURES The one downside to a Superbit offering is the obvious lack of special features as the format intends to use as much space as possible on the disc for the video and audio components of the movie.

Besides the requisite movie previews, the only other special feature is the music video for Damien Rice’s “The Blower’s Daughter.” While it is a worthy addition to the disc and a nice complement to the movie, the fact that it is the only additional feature on the disc does undercut its value somewhat. If the music video was included on a more complete version of the movie, it would be the whipped cream on the sundae, but here it’s just a haunting reminder of what is lacking from this disc.

The most notable admission from the disc are the deleted scenes and alternate ending. It was well-published before this movie’s theatrical release that Natalie Portman had filmed a full frontal version of her strip scene with Clive Owen that was (rightly so) axed from the movie under the guise of being a distraction. Also, there were reports that the original ending was changed due to poor responses from test audiences. These scenes alone would add tremendous value to the disc.

Additionally, it wouldn’t be asking too much to have a comparison documentary or two between the stage play and the movie as there are several differences in both tone and story that would interest even the most casual movie fan. Finally, with such critical acclaim for the performances, it would have been nice to have some audio commentary from the stars and director Mike Nichols at certain critical points in the movie.

Usually, when a movie is brought out in a bare-bones fashion such as this, it screams of a future special edition. One can only hope that this is the case when so much additional material is bound to exist. I doubt the cut Natalie Portman footage would ever see the light of day, but some cut scenes and the alternate ending would go a long way to boost the recommendation of this disc.

RECOMMENDATION

Closer is definitely a movie worth viewing by any self-respecting movie buff, if for no other reason than to enjoy the performances by Natalie Portman and Clive Owen. In particular, if you haven’t jumped on the Clive Owen bandwagon before now, you’ll be a card-carrying member after watching this film.

Unfortunately, without any real special features and true need of the Superbit treatment it received, I have no choice but to recommend that you skip this DVD. I would say rent it on VHS, but there’s pressing need to have to see this movie on DVD.