"Closer" remembered creepily...

The movie is incredibly well acted with Natalie Portman and Clive Owen truly deserving all the various nominations and wawards that they received for the film. The lighting is impressive and the cinematography excellent.

I hated it.

Turns out that my wife and I had seen the play on which this is based - pretty faithfully adapted, numerous lines exactly the same, settings all in place, pretty much a direct filming of the play - at the Playhouse in the Park - a few years ago, maybe in 2001 with two friends. I wasn't aware of that until a couple of scenes into the movie when I finally figured out why the scenes sounded so similar to me. It was the scene with the online chat that sealed the deal for me.

I'll avoid the basic plotline except to say that it's a film about two couples that fall in and out of relationships with each other. In the end it all comes down to the fact that there is no happiness, no joy for these people. The story is very well written making every twist and turn believable, letting us empathise with the characters at nearly every turn, and in the end we find out more about each of them than you do in most movies. All that being said, I did not enjoy this movie, and that just might say more about me than it does about this movie.

If you're willing to put up with the pain and unhappiness, this is an excellent film. I'll not be going through it again.