Who is truth for? Is it a balm for the deceiver or the deceived? Truth, and the lies it springs up from are at the center of Closer, Mike Nichols' 2004 penultimate feature about four individuals living in London, intertwined in romance and deceit. Nichols and screenwriter Patrick Marber craft a thoroughly modern take on material that has the potential for melodrama, and ground it in the rhythms and shorthand of close relationships. It refuses easy answers about the characters, portraying people with muddied intentions and imperfect reasoning.



Closer is a cautionary tale on engagement of id. Through several chance encounters, the characters come together: Dan (Jude Law) meets Alice (Natalie Portman) as she looks the wrong way at incoming traffic. Anna (Julia Roberts) is assigned to take Dan’s photograph for his book by his publisher; at that session, Alice arrives and has a woman to woman conversation on Dan’s behavior. Dan’s infatuation with Anna and twisted sense of humor leads him to a hookup chat room (a messenger-like internet based version of Tinder/Grinder, for you youngsters) where he proto-catfishes dermatologist Larry (Clive Owen) to a chance meeting with Anna. The story is told over time jumps; sometimes a year has passed, sometimes an afternoon. Dan never seems to commit fully to Alice, and Larry never seems to find solace in his relationship with Anna. Plenty is known without ever being spoken about, and when the truth does come out, it’s explosive.