Closer (DVD, 2005, Superbit)

This movie was reviewed in top newspapers and magazines (eg New York Times) and two of the actors (Portman and Owens) were nominated for Golden Globe and Oscar awards. I watched this movie a year after the hype because I had recalled that it was about relationships, was directed by renowned Mike Nichols (husband of Diane Sawyer) and starred phenomenal actors. I recalled from the reviews that the relationships had a tortuous element. This was born out in the film. What I was not prepared for was the gratuitous use of the f-word, the c-word and a scene in which two men are on the internet at a porn site and we see their typed expressions of sexual phantasies expressed in porn language. This scene does not last long but it is near the beginning of the movie. Another shocking scene viewers might like to be aware of , which I did not think advanced the plot or character development, was a scene where one of the characters(Owens) encounters the stripper character (Portman) at her place of employment. The message is that no matter how much money is paid it is all about look but don't touch, no intimacy, no truly knowing the real person. Apart from those risque scenes the rest of the shock value is in language. As I recall there are no actual scenes of sex or violence. Pain is inflicted by words and the telling of acts (of infidelity). Everybody's timing is off - they love too late, or love is unrequited. Twenty four hours later I found myself still contemplating the movie - it made me think. It is a cautionary tale. As a woman married 34 years I would say there is an alternative to the lives of these individuals - it is a pedestrian view of love, which plods on when love appears absent, dim or obscured, only to find around a corner or past a turn in the road that love has returned again as surely as sun after rain.