The screen adaptation of plays is a non-winning, ungrateful task; any play is initially static, the action takes place, as a rule, in the same place, the actors have nowhere to run wild, and that’s it. This is contrary to the art of the moving image (movie).
Mike Nichols is one of few who know how to turn a theatrical element into a screen one. The meaning of this transformation is to divert the viewer’s attention from the spectacle and outward appearance and pay it to the characters themselves and the vicissitudes of their relationship.
What is the movie “Closer” about?
One moment before being hit by a London cab, Alice meets Dan’s look among other passers-by in the crowd. The unaccustomed to left-hand traffic had an effect – Alice had just arrived from New York, where she worked as a stripper and had an unsuccessful romance. Dan accompanies her to the hospital, shows London, and talks about himself along the way. He is a journalist who writes obituaries, more precisely, composes them according to computer templates, reducing the categoricalness of formulations: for example, if the deceased was gay, then “he knew how to appreciate a real male friendship.” Dan dares to admit his lack of style and talent.
A year later, he poses in front of a photographer for the cover of his book – about Alice. A photographer, whose name is Anna, is one of the few who liked the book. She’s older than Alice, and she had an unhappy marriage. With a few shutter clicks and carefully frank dialogue, Dan has a new muse. However, Anna doesn’t want to feel like a destroyer. Emboldened, Dan teases in a sex chat horny bull named Larry and unleashes it on Anna. Unfortunately for Dan, this Larry turns out to be not such a brainless troglodyte (after all, a dermatologist) – he wins Anna over. Unfortunately for Larry, unfortunately for Alice, Anna and Dan remain mutual interest.
“Without truth, we are animals,” this phrase is the key. Without explanations and confessions, film characters are individuals who compete biologically. Love is not so much a feeling as a right of ownership. Fucking another man’s wife, they are not jealous of their husbands. But ex-husbands are already equal in status, already rivals. Polygamy and jealousy coexist too dangerously. The truth adds psychosis to this war.
Rejected, Larry tries to get revenge on Dan with intimacy with Alice, besides intimacy of a different kind. He throws a handful of bills at the stripper and demands frankness. Oh no, the stripper’s direct duties are not intimacy. But Alice also has reasons to take revenge on Dan. In the final part, the film turns into an action movie, with phrases instead of blows. Love no longer exists; there are only principles. And also lust. Larry beats up Dan – and finally can not help being ignobleness: he finishes off an opponent with a spectacular uppercut, the word “chick.” In this war, all means are reasonable. It seems like Larry won. But that only seems.
Such a kind of love is a disease. The way to recover is in the final shots. Returning to New York, Alice will switch to a red light again; everything will start anew.
Analysis of the characters in “Closer.”
Alice. A highly controversial, ambiguous character. Like an angel on earth, finding herself in a vice. Faced with a problematic situation, Alice realizes that a breakup is inevitable. She accepts it. But the heroine is looking for an excuse to leave this place. She must prove she was the one who initiated the breakup and she was not abandoned. The audience is presented with a strong personality, agreeing to break up with the man she loves.
Despite the fact that tears are flowing from her eyes, she is determined and consistent. Alice is a mysterious stranger. Dan has never been able to unravel this girl. The character suddenly realizes she has no feelings for Dan. The personage is always for the truth. For Alice, love is based on lies. For the girl, the truth represents the destruction of strong feelings.
Anna and Dan are two opposites who are attracted to each other. They’re as different as they are the same. Dan was initially introduced to the audience as a nerdy journalist. When he sees Anna, his eyes express self-confidence. A handsome man of his type exactly knows what he wants to achieve. He takes huge steps towards his goal. For him, there are no barriers or obstacles. At the end of the film, Dan becomes whiny and pathetic again. He hasn’t been able to prove his intense feelings to Anna or Alice. Has he never really been in love with any of these girls?
Larry is a kind of macho man with a defiant demeanor. At first, the viewer may think he’s just an ordinary guy with few gruff manners. But before long, he’s in all his glory. Larry is arrogant and brutal. He is not used to restraining his emotions. The personage is ready to pursue the truth in everything. The character’s thoughts and actions are straightforward and open-minded. If Larry loves, he forgives all and forgives nothing simultaneously. There are both cruelty and leniency, which cannot be separated from each other.
“Сloser” movie explained
The idea of “Closer” is to make the viewer realize how sudden feelings can be. And people really want to believe that their love is mutual. They even look for proof to prove it. All the characters in the film are beautiful and unforgettable. The actors are magnificent in their acting. They go along with their desires.
To understand the film, you need to look from the point of view of system-vector psychology. The spectacle is really worthy careful look of a systems psychologist.
The character of Natalie Portman is a young woman who is still far from her development peak. Working as a stripper, she is very provocative, and men are literally ready to shake their wallets, seeing her curved young body. Of course, she leaves indifferent neither doctor nor writer.
The character of Jude Law, a young writer, who is cold in English manner and a little infantile. At first, he falls in love badly with the less developed heroine Portman, experiencing the desire to take care of her, and later just loses his head when she sees the wise and developed Roberts. The character of Roberts is in a state of love, does not demand anything for herself, but only endows him with tenderness akin to maternal. Her taste is sweeter for him than what his young girlfriend in the face of Portman can still give him.
Roberts’s Husband, enraged by the betrayal, screams at the back of the destroyed Lowe: “She said that you woke up at night in tears, calling your mommy, and burying yourself in her chest.”
The story is not flattering, but it ends quite optimistically. The character of Natalie Portman leaves her English boyfriend and returns to America – mature and less inconsistent in her behavior.
From the ending, it becomes clear that after a couple of years of her new life in the homeland, she blooms, acquiring the features of the developed femininity of the Julia Roberts character, which are so familiar to the viewer.
“Closer” movie ending explained
The main point of the film “Closer” (2004) is that even the closest people one day may become strangers. We are as close as we are strangers at the same time. Sometimes it may seem that you know all the habits and thoughts of your beloved ones. But after a while, you realize you were completely wrong. It is impossible to unravel all the mysteries or to unlock another person’s secrets. Some people can’t even understand themselves, let alone those around them. It is impossible to reach all the hidden corners of the soul. Sometimes a person can predict the wishes of a loved one. And they are sure that they have learned to understand their thoughts and aspirations. But this is a deceptive feeling. A person will never become an open book, even to a loved one.
The realization will come suddenly. Your loved one is a mysterious stranger whom you’ve never known. You know nothing about him. Alice has become such a character.
The film Closer confuses the viewer with its “I don’t know what or who I want.” It’s another interpretation of the tale of the broken trough.
