Rearing Julia Roberts

Noel Vera

Mike Nichol's adaptation of "Closer" seems well-made, well acted
and, considering the critical reception and brisk business this
small-budgeted movie made, pretty much well-received. The only thing
missing, apparently, is a good reason for existing.

The story is a case of musical chairs: an American girl steps off a
London street looking the wrong way and is promptly hit by a car;
Dan (Jude Law) takes the injured Alice (Natalie Portman) to the
emergency room, where they decide they like each other. Dan later
has a photo session with Anna (Julia Roberts) for his new book,
based on Alice's life; Dan flirts with Anna, who rebuffs him. By way
of revenge, Dan tricks Larry (Clive Owen) into thinking Anna is an
online nymphomaniac who wants to meet him. Anna turns Dan's revenge
to her advantage by hitting it off with Larry, ultimately marrying
him. Further plot twists, reversals, revelations, and betrayals
follow.

You're supposed to see the ironies: the women are American, the men
English; a couple of upper-class professionals confront a pair of
working-class stiffs; sex is the primary subject, though not much
action happens onscreen; and the single most honest moment in the
film occurs in a strip joint, where ersatz sexuality is sold
wholesale. All in all, a nicely nasty little couple of hours at the
movies, though hardly different enough or substantial enough or
truthful enough to be what you might call memorable, much less
consequential.

Actually, the biggest irony working in the movie (and presumably the
reason the film is making brisk business) is that Ms. Roberts goes
unglamorous and gritty for her role, even to the point of admitting
she has had anal sex--and enjoyed it! The irony beyond that is that
when Roberts says this you look at her like you look at a child
trying to shock adults--it's unbecoming, and worse, unconvincing;
even when she's supposed to be sexy and devious she looks squeaky
clean. Roberts is a fine comedienne, nothing to be ashamed of, but
her idea of serious acting seems to be to not smile that legendary
Roberts smile; problem with that is, there doesn't seem to be more
to her beyond that smile, so when she walks through an entire movie
with glumly determined mouth, you feel somehow cheated. A hundred
and ten minutes of Hollywood's most famous star not being her famous
self? Refund! Art and the art of acting don't really enter the
equation.

I'm guessing Natalie Portman and Jude Law as Alice and Dan
respectively are the other two draws of the movie--see Portman do a
strip routine! See Law do his "Alfie" (British cad with the bit of
charm) bit! Portman is still heartachingly beautiful (funny how
George Lucas likes to wrap her in thick fabrics and mutant hairdos
in the "Star Wars" prequels--let's deny her sexuality, shall we?),
she does strip, and she actually does a reasonable job of it (though
you can't help but notice that she hardly sweats, and her makeup is
never less than perfect); as Alice learning that Dan is leaving her
for Anna, she reacts with the intense honesty of girls of that age;
as Alice teasing Larry in the nightclub, she's even more intriguing,
a lovely, half-naked Sphinx answering Larry's desperate confessions
with hinted-at enigmas and seeming half-truths. Law fares less well,
mainly because the script (written by Patrick Marber, based on his
play) seems to have made up its mind about him, given him less sides
than the other characters (it's also distracting to note that he's
prettier than the unsmiling Roberts).

Clive Owens is the least known of the four, relatively speaking
(though he is at the time of writing rumored to be the next James
Bond), but easily delivers the best performance--which figures,
having first developed his character on the theater stage. Larry
comes off as an klutzy jerk in the early scenes, particularly when
he sneaks his hand into his pants zipper while at his office desk;
as the plot rings its changes on him, he becomes alternately
pathetic, intriguing, and eventually chilling, and he manages all
this with the kind of swiftness and earthy appeal gifted fresh
actors (even Law, when he was starting out) seem to have, at least
at first.

Mike Nichols was chosen to adapt this play to the big screen, and he
ought to be an obvious choice--he did "Who's Afraid of Virginia
Woolfe?" early in his career (managing--just barely--to keep the lid
on Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor as the battling married
couple), Margaret Edson's "Wit" a few years back, and, most
impressive of all, Tony Kushner's six-hour epic "Angels in America."
Problem with Nichols is that his ideas for adapting a stage play
often seem questionable--his "Angels" felt like banal melodrama
played at epic length, with awkward CGI effects glued to the edges,
where the original was all daring cinematic stagecraft, seamlessly
integrating fantasy with reality (Nichols doesn't seriously damage
Kushner's play, but doesn't bring much to the party either). His
concept for adapting "Closer" is to "open it up" a little, insert a
few scenes in a few recognizable London locales, then shoot the rest
in a bland TV-movie manner (mostly a few long shots to introduce the
characters walking into their expensive apartments or photo
galleries, then standard-issue two-shots for the rest of the scene).
His handling of "Wit," a made-for-TV mortality play, was more
interesting, because it retained many of the play's theatrical
devices--flashbacks and direct address, characters entering
childhood memories, and vice versa (all of which seem mined from the
800-pound gorilla of recent mortality plays, Dennis Potter's
great "The Singing Detective")--translated to the small screen,
which entertained you where the play's sometimes dreary morbidity
didn't. Nichols, when he's not doing blatantly commercial work
like "The Birdcage," seems (unlike Robert Altman, whose recent work
seems as fresh and innovative as ever) like an old theater hand
who's outlived his energy, edge, and importance. This is as
disposable an entertainment as any I've seen, recently.

(First appeared in Businessworld, 4/8/05)

(Comments? Email me at noelbotevera@...)