Lost Reviews #1

I stumbled upon several one-paragraph or so reviews hidden within the documents on my computer. I wrote these reviews between the years 2004 and 2007 and was very interested to see how I felt about certain movies way back when I first saw them... precisely the point that I once had 25 pages worth of reviews before my stupid computer swallowed them, then died.

So I thought I'd post one review a day in addition to any new reviews I post. First up...

Closer (2004)
Mike Nichols

--Closer is a film for which I've been an anti-advocate. My only recollection of this movie was that I did not like it one bit. Either I was once upon a time, much more generous in my ratings or there's something I don't remember about it because even its two star review is surprising.--

Clive Owen, Jude Law, Julia Roberts and Natalie Portman turn in great performances in this silver screen soap opera. Those performances are perhaps the one upside of this film. They each play deceptive lovers who never change and never arouse emotion for the viewer. They are, put simply, unlikable characters. This, however, is precisely the point. We are not supposed to like these characters, however we begin not liking them and we end not liking them.

 The writing is very good in this film, however, the story is not. There are far too many aspects to suggest how deceptive these characters are. They go back and forth between lovers not one too many, but just way too many times. Its a simple conflict that we are forced to endure several times throughout the film. Natalie Portman's character has a different look all the time, not to mention her fake name, suggesting once again, that she is a liar. (As if we didn't already know that about her from the rest of the film) I hate to suggest that this film is an excuse for beautiful people to talk dirty to each other but it seems that 2/3s of the film is just that. While we never see any of the sex that goes on, we hear plenty about it.

 The relationships in this movie are so clearly love/hate. This could have been very easily taken in the right direction, which may have been that they all want the same thing but can't get it because of their lies, however it skews in so many other directions along the way that it is simply a mess.

 It is not a bad film, in other words, I was never tempted to walk out. It was entertaining enough to keep me there to the end, however when the end came I was not rewarded. There are no redeeming values, no character changes and no conflicts other than the one presented to us over and over again.

**
12/20/04