What I love most about films is the way that writers observe how relationships and lifestyles work around different people. They look at a situation and it can change due to the type of people involved. Like players in a game. Take love at first sight - if you see a beautiful angelic woman with fiery red hair this, if you are male, must make your heart stop; because she catches your eye. Whether its her hair or her face but she's caught you. However when watching this on screen, Jude Law's character Dan believed that Alice (Natalie Portman) had captured his heart. Dan loves women however the problem is her loves all women. Alice is a stripper from New York who has come to London to change her life around in doing so falls straight in love with Dan.
The movie CLOSER is a tale of relationships and jumps very quickly through time. A year later Dan - a failed novelist - meets Anna (Julia Roberts) and believe once again that this is love at first sight. However on finding Dan is taken, Anna refuses to enter into an adulterous relationship. Dan, bitter and twisted, logs onto a sex chat room site and meets Larry (Clive Owen) and in pretending to be Anna agrees to meet up with Larry. Ironically Larry does run into the real Anna and marries her four months later although by this time Anna and Dan have begun and ended an affair. Are you lost yet? Try watching the film its a jumble of lost time.
Anna is a depressive, refusing to let herself be happy which is why she messes up her marriage with Larry and agrees to run off with Dan. Dan in all fairness does love Anna and tells Alice that their two year relationship is over. So here we have it two years down the line with Anna and Larry getting divorced, Anna and Dan together and Alice going back to stripping to get by under the name of Plain Jane Jones.
A lot of controversy surrounds this film over the language used by the characters, they are foul mouthed and I am not just talking about the F word. Larry is derogatory and vile in speaking to Anna about her relationship with Dan and he is again as rude and violent with his language with talking to Alice in the strip club where she works. However I think that the language gives the film edge. It makes you cringe and does make you feel quite sick after a while however there are men like that out there, who like to talk to women in such a way that it makes them feel better about themselves. What I like most about this film is the way it makes you sympathise with every character at different points. At the beginning who would have thought I would feel sorry for wet fish Dan by the end. And nice guy Larry to be the foul mouthed manipulator of Love. Alice is quite a lot smarter than a stripper should be and Anna well she is more destructive than we would think.
It makes you wonder doesn't it, if the grass really is greener on the other side? That is what Dan believes, Alice is described as an angel throughout the majority of the movie by Dan. She is beautiful and sweet and caring and loves Dan more than anything. However on meeting Anna, Dan believes that this woman is the one for him and pursues her instead although goes back to Alice after Anna sleeps with Larry. Whether men like Dan like the chase or the excitement beats me. Although in the end when Alice asks if Dan is leaving her because Anna is more successful, Dan replies with 'It's because she doesn't need me.' This is very true, women become wanted when they are independent and become abandoned when needy. Dan becomes the needy one, longing for Anna however she is self-sufficient and in truth does not need him, making her un-reachable. Larry on the other hand loves Anna and will do anything to get her back - however if you go after someone so much does the ideal of them becomes so much more perfect than the reality.
Love is an Accident waiting to happen.
Desire is a Stranger you think you know.
Intimacy is a lie we Tell Ourselves.
Truth is a Game you play to Win.
If you believe in Love at First Sight. You Never Stop Looking.
