Closer (2004)
When the time came for Patrick Marber to adapt his highly successful broadway play for the big screen, there were no doubt many in the film community that doubted the film version would live up to the brilliance of its predecessor. Indeed, when Closer was originally performed in 1997, well before the millenium, and proliferation of the internet, it was something of a spectacle that only the stage could truly accomodate. Take, for example, the scene with the internet chat room, when Dan tricks Larry into meeting Anna at the London Aquarium. There was no way that this cleverly crafted theatrical scene, brought to life by some very creative set designers, could have the same cringeworthy feel on film? Only it did; except this time Dan, originally played on stage by Clive Owen, is portrayed by Jude Law, and Larry the doctor is Mr. Owen, bravely switching the role that he played to such aclaim on Broadway. The gamble paid off on both accounts; Clive Owen is simply brilliant; sardonic and self deprocating to devastating effect, and the film, well, it is a well measured adaptation of the play and, indeed, of London. That in itself should have been victory enough.
The story surrounds obituary writer Dan (Jude Law), who is dating the enigmatic Alice (Natalie Portman), yet cannot contain his feelings for Anna (Julia Roberts) a successful photographer who is photographing Dan for a book he is publishing. When Anna rejects Dan's advances, Dan decides to take his revenge by sneakily setting her up on a date with Larry (Clive Owen), a man (actually a doctor) he meets in an internet sex chatroom. Dan's luck turns even worse when Larry and Anna hit it off and begin seeing each other. It is best to stop here, for the strength of the piece lies not only in the convoluted and well crafted nature of the characters relationships, but in the way that they converse and interact throughout the piece.
I have rarely read a script where the characters venomous words mean so much, and resonate so deeply. There is nothing overly stylised or cheap about the language Marber uses, and it is quite faithfully reflected from the source material to the script. It is not pretentious, but infact utterly fitting for such disfunctional relationships. Those who feel that this might be just another facet of the 'cool Britannia' mid-90's British theatre movement, are wrong. The vernacular is shocking at times, but not as controversial as some of the same work produced in that period (Mark Ravenhill a la Shopping and Fucking springs to mind). This is perhaps because the balance is so neatly struck between raw physical emotion, and vicious undiluted verbal rebuttals (usually from Owen). The words simply ring true.
Director Mike Nichols, no stranger to adapting hit plays (The Birdcage), reimangines the story in as sincere a tone as you could hope for. The cinematography showcases the beauty of London's cultural corners, from the Theatre Royal Drury Lane to the National Portrait Gallery and, for once, the inside of a red bus, not just the shape of one truddling on past. The city feels real in Closer, and is not just a two dimensional tableau, as we've seen so often before. Indeed, in one of the films finer vignettes, responding to Dan's observation that the heart is not just a diagram, Larry angrily rebuts, "have you ever seen the human heart?; it looks like a fist wrapped in blood". Not only do we discover this truth, but also a side of London that is much too often left buffed and polished.
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