Closer(2004)- User Reviews

This is a smart, sexy, memorable story of love, lust, attraction, deception, and insatiable yearning. The subtext is that one's work is far less important to human happiness than the depth of one's attraction to a special relationship partner. That's an important distinction because the QUALITY and COMMITMENT to one's love relationship is almost constantly in question here, while it is 'attraction' that fuels the yearning that will not be satisfied. Ironically, it is the youngest and least professional character (Jane) who is true to her love (played with brilliant vacuity by Jude Law), and maintains that love even when coldly rejected. And when her love is betrayed, she alone is able to completely close the door and move on. All four of the ensemble are exceptionally good looking, world smart, savvy, and successful. Yet despite this, each of them is looking elsewhere for a larger sense of meaning. Careers do not satisfy, marriage does not satisfy, appealing partners do not satisfy--what then is left but intrigue, even though it carries the element of danger? And in the end, everyone gets harmed through their actions. There is no happy ending here--two characters alone and in need of restarting their life, two characters married but the husband smug and the wife restless. It seems to me that these four people are not so much victimized by their own poor moral standards and life dreams, but rather by a modern society that intrinsically devalues happiness and substitues it with lust for the ever new, the supposedly greater happiness that temptingly lurks beyond the next corner. But as our characters discover, this is a formula for constant disappointment. That such a dark tale can be told in a glamorous, enjoyable drama is a credit to the writer, the filmmaker, and the actors, who all remain emminently likeable despite their obvious flaws.