Pretty Faces, Despicable People

I have to admit--the Damien Rice song in the preview hooked me. I had heard a little bit about Closer beforehand, and had even seen the trailer. I knew it had the dour, dignified, and decadent Clive Owen, as well as the ubiquitous (and, well, frankly kind of annoying) Jude Law. And I knew it promised to be a smart examination of modern relationships. But, well, it isn't a period literary adaptation with Colin Firth, so I wasn't that excited. Jack Thunder, too, was fairly lukewarm about seeing it in the theater. But if you've heard a Damien Rice song before you'll know why I had to check it out. Absolutely gut-wrenchingly gorgeous.

Well, I got my Damien Rice song, the achingly beautiful "Blower's Daughter," at the very beginning of Closer. In the opening scene, Dan, a somewhat pitiful obituary writer and aspiring author played by Law, is walking down a crowded London street when he spies a young and edgy-looking American woman (Natalie Portman) coming toward him. They are both taken with each other, and intense staring ensues as the strains of "Blower's Daughter" continue in the background. But suddenly the woman, Alice, is hit by an oncoming taxi and Dan rushes to her side. He accompanies her to the ER (it's only a little scrape) and then spends the morning with her. She's bold and quirky, and used to be a stripper--all pluses, of course.

Next we are instantly thrown forward in time a year or two. Dan and Alice live together and he has written and published a novel based on her apparently scandalous past. It is obvious that their relationship has seen better days, with Alice making desperate attempts to endear herself to Dan, and Dan seeming to lose interest in Alice with each passing moment. Dan has a photo shoot for his dust jacket pic with the lovely American photographer Anna (Julia Roberts), and, in a startlingly unrealistic scene lasting ten minutes, claims to have fallen in love with her at first sight. He comes on to her as she shoots his smarmy face, but she fends off his advances.

Another year later. Dan is still obsessed with Anna--so much so that he goes on a trashy sex chat website (pretending to be a woman) and lures an equally depraved doctor to meet Anna at a place where he suspects she will be the next day. This scene is a complete turn-off, with filthy bedroom talk flying back and forth with alarming speed. At any rate, Anna and the doctor, Larry (Clive Owen), do meet and start dating. But after seeing Larry make an exhibition of himself in the chat room, one wonders how he could enter into any relationship that goes beyond superficiality and sex.

And that brings me to my thoughts on Closer, which goes on to show Dan, Alice, Anna, and Larry flail about in their initial relationships, and then secretly trade partners with each other to go on to have equally dysfunctional affairs. My first question is this: Why in heaven's name should I care a morsel for any of these people? They are the epitome of self-absorbed. They are incapable of compassion and commitment. They see relationships as conquests, mere diversions, or easy, empty ways to avoid loneliness. And most of all, they cannot love.

Certainly this portrayal was the goal of the director, who thought it would be clever to skip all the romantic cliches and get down to the real nitty gritty of how selfish, unfeeling people attempt relationships in our modern age. I can only say "Yawn." I already know that people have trouble putting others first, and that many relationships rarely advance beyond the superficial. I already know that "romantic love" could just be a longstanding, media-fueled myth. And I already know that in our technology-filled world, we are becoming more isolated and are finding fewer reasons to care and be cared for by others.

So what have I learned about human life from this film? In what ways have I been compelled to sympathize with characters I might have nothing in common with? How have I changed and how have I been touched? How, in short, have I had the experience I expect from a truly good film? When I ask myself these questions, I come up with nothing, and that is so disappointing. I don't ask that all the characters in films be perfect, kind, and good. I don't ask for happy endings or fantasies. But what I do ask for is depth. I get it, I get it, Mike Nichols. You have superficially portrayed superficial people. What a triumph! By showing couples in isolated scenes during which they are either fighting, breaking up, or cheating, you have gotten to the heart of the post-post-modern love match. How clever! And the irony of your title, "Closer," well that's just the icing on the cake.

But a film with real depth would have showed these doomed couples during their good times too. It would have sought to examine why the relationships dwindled. It would have given its characters more traits than just horny, vain, and needy. It would have made me care about them, just a little, so that I really was moved by the reality that many people don't have what it takes to truly love another person. As it was, I didn't care at all. And that made me feel just as dirty and selfish as they were.

That's why I'm going to wash the taste of Closer out of my mouth and go back to listening to my Damien Rice CD. It's funny how his songs are all about a person who is imperfect, who fails at love, and who is needy and sometimes desperate, but I care. I feel his emotion and his struggle, and I care.