Closer

Closer, the movie starring Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, and Jude Law, is a beautiful piece of shit.

The direction is superb and understated. The acting is spot on and powerfully real. The sound and cinematography are sublime. The score is worth the listen.

The story, however, had no focus. All the movie shows us is the banality of life. The lowest of the low decisions people make. At each opportunity that the characters have to turn back from the train wreck that is quickly becoming their lives, they choose the poorest option. The repetition of these poor decisions is so consistent as to be absurd. Pure random chance would cause some of this story to turn out better than it did.

Closer is about four people whose lives commingle in such a way so that everyone’s life is lost in the banal.

Movies can be about real life, and I have enjoyed films that are. Films can be about common people making common decisions, and they can be good. But in these cases they usually hold a mirror to our own lives, have a cautionary tale to tell, or a moral judgment to make. In Closer, every time it seems like a comment is forthcoming, or a moral, or something, the story shies away. At first I thought this might be about the duplicity we all bring to relationships. Next I figured it was cautioning that too much truth can hurt as much as it heals. I also flirted with the notion the movie was warning against mistaking passion or lust for love. Lastly, I thought maybe it was saying that people by their very natures are spiteful.

Closer shied from each of those, just as it had the chance to score the point. So in the end, I am left choosing between one of two morals to this story: People are stupid, which I already knew, and that relationships are a lie, which I refuse to believe.

A slice of life only works if you comment on it. Otherwise, the viewers could be living their own lives rather than watching what the filmmaker chooses to show them. This beautiful piece of shit enthralled me with its beauty, but, ultimately, left me unfulfilled.