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January 17, 2005

I Can't Take My Eyes Off You, A Closer Film Review

A drama drenched in fortuitous love encounters twisted with infidelity and commitment realism, Closer reveals the mixture of true love and desire. Last week Peter and I went to see Closer at Block E in downtown Minneapolis.

I left the movie theater with a reinforced realistic view of humankind’s ambitions of love, commitment, and desire. From my perception, love is the strongest and most powerful emotion. Experiencing love is one of the best feelings in the world. What could possibly interfere with Love? Desire. How can an emotion filled with uncertainty lacking the strength and honesty compete with something so true? Closer points out that Desire is a stranger you think you know. Desire can compete for adventure and the unknown. Directed by Mike Nichols, casting Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Clive Owen, and Michael Haley; Closer paints the perfect picture for those of you who are completely optimistic about love at first sight.

Love is an accident waiting to happen. Dan (Jude Law), playing a failed novelist & obituary writer, is walking down a London street when he spots Alice (Portman), a peculiar redhead, just before a car strikes her. Dan runs to her aid just before she regains her consciousness. When she awakes, an instant attraction is notable. Infatuation, initially deciphered as love, becomes the plot of the story. I feel the infatuation turns into true love throughout the story. Dan’s desire towards Anna (Roberts), a photographer, creates a parallel relationship that is equally incompatible. During Dan’s first encounter with Anna, Dan seems to fall in “love” again, while Alice waits outside the studio. The force of Dan’s desire overpowers his love towards Alice. Dan and Anna testify their infatuation during the same phase as Alice and Larry (Owen), Anna’s husband she met off the Internet from a practical joke played by Dan. Anna states to Dan “why did you swear eternal love when all you wanted was excitement? Love bores you.” Dan replies with “No, it disappoints me.” Throughout the progression of the movie, mixtures of emotions are displayed. This movie will leave you wondering what it takes for a relationship to be true. Does a relationship just conform into trueness and happiness without negative times? Does hurt solidify trueness and love? Some say truth is a game…you play to win.

How can infatuation be solidified into love? Is infatuation more powerful than love? If you believe in love at first sight, you never stop looking. This film leaves massive space for personal reflection. This is one of the best movies I have viewed. Closer, giving a hurtful, but realistic view of relationships keeps your attention throughout the entire film. Bathed in fantastic music, this movie will leave you pondering what it takes to make love true. Please leave your comments in response to your analysis of this film!


Click Here to View the Closer Movie Trailer!

Posted by ande4192 at January 17, 2005 4:23 PM | Blaine's Reviews

Comments

I was intrigued by Closer. There are so many dynamics to this very complex movie. In many ways it reminded me of the Mike Nichols film Carnal Knowledge. In both movies the female characters are portrayed as trying to be strong but really being very weak. This was especially true of the Julia Roberts character. As in Carnal Knowledge, the male characters had so much more depth than the females. Jude Law's acting was fantastic. He played such a fraud by talking of love and yet being able to hide the fact that he was totally consumed by himelf, culminating at the point when he slaps Alice in the face. For some reason Jude Law reminded me of a young Malcolm McDowell. I noticed that the Jude Law character wore non-prescription glasses throughout the movie, except during those scenes where he was wearing contact lenses and "had to take his eyes out" as he told the Alice character. Surely the phoney spectacles were designed to show what a fraud he was. This seemed to connect to Malcolm McDowell character in the film If... when he shaves his moustache off at the beginning of the film after saying that he grew it to "hide behind his sins". The fake glasses were designed to be a symbol of intelligence, but were merely a prop behind which the Law character hides behind in order to conceal his true beastly nature. By contrast, the Clive Owen character appears on the surface to be an animal, but he is the only one who truly understands human relationships. The depth of his character is far from being skin deep, thus in sharp contrast with his occupation as a dermatologist. His line, "I've seen the human heart. It looks like a fist covered in blood" has got to be one of the best lines I have ever heard in a movie. I also liked the part where he says to the Jude Law character, "you will never know what love is because you don't know how to compromise." To me, that summed up perfectly how different the two male characters were. The Clive Owen character has no desire to strike his cheating wife, thus showing absolute control over his animal instincts, whereas the Jude Law character slaps Alice across the face in anger even though she had sex with a man when she was not even attached to the Jude Law character and after telling him that she preferred him over the Owen character. All in all, Closer has got to be one of the best movies I have seen in a long time and confirms in my minds that director Mike Nichols has a terrific insight into human relationships.

Posted by: Zach Wilson at March 14, 2005 10:40 PM

I have to agree with both of your observation(s) of the movie. I had to really watch the movie the second time to really get it. I've never been in love before, and when all I see is happy fairy tale movies where the girl gets the guy or the guys gets the girl, it does get old afterawhile. When the movie came out, I had to see it. The cast of actors where amazing. I found Jude Law's character very weak. It seemed to me that he wanted an idealized love. Like he made up this perfect person in his mind and both Alice and Annie where not it. He went back and forth to each of them, claming he loved both, but did not. Annie played by Julia Roberts character seemed to border on the needy and clingy. She seemed like all she wanted was someone to love and I truly think Clive Owen's character loved her, honestly. The biting script and intense scenes where very realistic and it made me think, "We can really stop loving someone because of there true deep insecure weaknesses." Closer is defintely at the top of my list of good movies. G'day.

Posted by: Marie at April 5, 2005 5:51 PM

I have to agree with both of your observation(s) of the movie. I had to really watch the movie the second time to really get it. I've never been in love before, and when all I see is happy fairy tale movies where the girl gets the guy or the guys gets the girl, it does get old afterawhile. When the movie came out, I had to see it. The cast of actors where amazing. I found Jude Law's character very weak. It seemed to me that he wanted an idealized love. Like he made up this perfect person in his mind and both Alice and Annie where not it. He went back and forth to each of them, claming he loved both, but did not. Annie played by Julia Roberts character seemed to border on the needy and clingy. She seemed like all she wanted was someone to love and I truly think Clive Owen's character loved her, honestly. The biting script and intense scenes where very realistic and it made me think, "We can really stop loving someone because of there true deep insecure weakneases." Closer is defintely at the top of my list of good movies. G'day.

Posted by: Marie at April 5, 2005 5:52 PM

Someone Please help me find the soundtrack or the name of who is singing that beautiful song at the end...."Can't take my eyes off you".... I've exhausted my search of the net for it. Thanks!

Posted by: Jenny at June 10, 2005 12:02 PM

jenny, the song is by damian rice, and it's called "the blowers daughter." just beautiful~~! good luck getting ahold of it, sarah

Posted by: sarah at June 11, 2005 9:09 AM

I agree with your reviews of "Closer" for the most part, however, I cannot admit to that without some degree of guilt. You see, I'm a Christian, and I believe that marriage can work, and that a true love can exist between a woman and man that is strong enough to withstand the power of desires or temptation.. I found the movie rather bleak in its depiction of relationships and the interactions between romantic (or obsessive/infatuated) couples. I, too, found the dynamics of the movie intriguing, and the interplay between all four very strong characters kept me transfixed the entire movie long (I was awed to realize at the end of the movie that there isn't any deviation from the lives of Anna, Alice (aka Jane), Dan, and Larry...and that this was enough to keep me captive throughout). I felt very involved in the love affairs of the 4, yet I was sickened by the sexual barbarism that was so much a part of them. It saddens me that we live in a society that necessitates such blatant sexual content to show a true depiction of relationships, or how they can be. I'm not saying I'd prefer the movie to be merely suggestive, sugar-coated or just 'toned-down'...I found it to be very real, and to cut to the heart of matters... I guess I just wish I didn't have to see this side of things.. the sex without love, the untamable desires, the animilastic nature within. Perhaps that's the problem right there. It's become completely acceptable to unleash sexual desires, as nothing is 'shocking' anymore... so as the definition of 'taboo' evolves, our desires evolve with it, and we acquire the mindset of 'what's out there is mine for the taking'. Dan (Jude Law's character) definitely subscribed to this mentality, and look where it landed him...

Posted by: Brianne at June 16, 2005 10:11 AM

First off, I would like to say Closer is one of the best if not the best movie released in years. When combining a wonderful screenplay, four uncanny actors, and flawless directing you cannot lose. Basically the movie protrays "love" in this day and time, in which love's meaning has fallen to a general state of infatuation. Each charater "needs" the idea of love, due to their own weaknesses. In return when they find this so called love, it is only lost when something better satisfying comes along. Instant satisfaction is the true search in this movie, and life. Why wait, why be content, why settle, when something could be walking down the street at any given time.

Posted by: Brett at June 24, 2005 1:33 AM

Love and infatuation are two totally different things, though they can (rarely) exist together. I think love is a deeper, spiritual aspect, where infatuation is all about the self and need.

Posted by: Rebecca at June 2, 2007 11:01 AM

This is a blast from the past... now I have to go to YouTube to listen to that lovely song. I'll be humming it for days. LOL

Posted by: Kaye at November 17, 2009 11:36 PM

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