Closer (2004): C

If Closer’s examination of adult sexual relations is accurate, then women crave louses and men are gripped by an obsession with whores. Such a simplistically cynical worldview certainly allows director Mike Nichols and his illustrious cast to freely indulge in nasty wordplay and cruel adulterousness, both of which are meant to expose the brutal truths about our ugly, selfish hearts. Unfortunately, I didn’t buy a second of this competently acted, theatrically staged chamber piece (based on Patrick Marber’s play) about two couples (Jude Law and Natalie Portman are one, Julia Roberts and Clive Owen are the other) torn apart by rampant infidelity. The kind of film in which vain superstars are afforded the opportunity to behave vilely, Closer reveals its belief in the principal role of violence in sex and love during a climactic scene in which Clive Owen – portraying the film’s most repugnant, and therefore most captivating, character – screams to Jude Law’s obituary writer, “The heart looks like a fist wrapped in blood.” Yet Portman’s stripper more accurately sums up the project’s egotistical shallowness when she criticizes photographer Roberts’ black-and-white portraits – and, by extension, Nichols’ visually static, dramatically preposterous film – as “a bunch of sad people photographed beautifully.”