| | | "If You Believe in Love at First Sight, You Never Stop Looking."
Features: Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 1.85:1, Dolby Digital (5.1), Dubbed, French, Dubbed & Subtitled
A witty, romantic, and very dangerous love story about chance meetings, instant attractions, and casual betrayals. Closer is director Mike Nichols' critically acclaimed look at four strangers - Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen - with one thing in common: each other. Adapted by Patrick Marber from his award-winning stage play, Closer "Vibrates with eroticism, bruising laughs, and dynamic performances. Closer is a triumph!" --Peter Travers, Rolling Stone.
"Two thumbs way up." Ebert & Roeper
"...an un-love story as honest and naked as Cupid in the devil's dock, the whole truth, and nothing but." Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle
"Few directors are more adept at playing with all this anguish and exhilaration than Mike Nichols." Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
"...vibrates with eroticism, bruising laughs and dynamite performances..." Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
"At last, a love story for adults." Time
Editor's Note
Are humans meant to mate for life? What drives someone in a perfectly good relationship to cheat and risk losing the one that they love and that loves them? Is it possible to love more than one person at the same time? How well does anyone really know the one that they love? Directed by Mike Nichols (THE GRADUATE, BIRDCAGE, WORKING GIRL), CLOSER questions the nature of relationships and fidelity as it follows the tangled web created by Dan (Jude Law), Alice (Natalie Portman), Anna (Julia Roberts), and Larry (Clive Owen). Dan, a British writer of obituaries, and Alice, a young American stripper, meet in the film's opening scene when a London cab runs her down. Cut to a year later: Dan and Alice are now a couple, but he is suddenly smitten with Anna, a beautiful American photographer. In an ironic twist of fate, Anna meets Larry, a British doctor, and they are soon a couple, despite Dan's continuing obsession. But the entanglements don't end there, and ultimately, someone is sure to get hurt. The four players do justice to a script that is humorous, raw and disarmingly honest about adult relationships.
| Features | Audio: English PCM 5.1 Surround Sound, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Audio: French, Russian Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Audio: Italian PCM 5.1 Surround Sound, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Dubbed: French, Italian, Russian | | Interactive Menus | | Music Video: Damien Rice's The Blower's Daughter | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Hebrew, Arabic, Dutch, Swedish, Hungarian, Czech, Norwegian, Danish, Hindi, Polish, Greek, Icelandic, Finnish, Turkish, Slovenian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Romanian | | This Is A Blu-Ray DVD Made For Blue-Laser Format Players Which Produce Higher Quality Picture & Sound |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Sony Pictures |
| Release Date: 5/22/2007 |
| Running Time: 104 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2004 | | Catalog ID: 19436 | | UPC: 00043396194366 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English, French Dubbed, Italian Dubbed, Russian Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Mandarin | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew | Clive Owen | | Jude Law | | Julia Roberts | | Natalie Portman | | Antonia Van Drimmelen - Editor | | Grant Armstrong, et. al. - Art Director | | John Bloom - Editor | | Mike Nichols - Director | | Patrick Marber - Writer | | Paul A. Levin - Producer | | Robert Fox - Executive Producer | | Stephen Goldblatt - Cinematographer | | Steven Patrick Morrissey - Original Music By | | Tim Hatley - Production Designer |
| Awards |
Winner (2005) | | | British Academy Awards, Clive Owen, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role | | | Golden Globe, Clive Owen, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture | | | Golden Globe, Natalie Portman, Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture | |
Nominee (2005) | | | Golden Globe, Mike Nichols, Best Director - Motion Picture | | | Golden Globe, Closer, Best Motion Picture - Drama | | | Golden Globe, Patrick Marber, Best Screenplay - Motion Picture | | | Oscar, Clive Owen, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role | | | Oscar, Natalie Portman, Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role |
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| | Professional Reviews | New York Times
"The verbal intercourse that dominates that scene and every other in the film is vigorous, compulsive, sometimes painful and occasionally funny." p.E1USA Today
"All the actors do fine work, but Owen's quixotic and brooding quality is particularly effective here." 12/03/2004 p.8E Rolling Stone
"[T]he haunting, hypnotic CLOSER vibrates with eroticism, bruising laughs and dynamite performances from four attractive actors doing decidedly unattractive things." 12/09/2004 p.189 Entertainment Weekly
"The place, the costumes, the staging of sexual provocation and betrayal are refined studies in luxurious understatement." 12/10/2004 p.63-4 Film Comment
"[Portman is] the film's most enigmatic character..." 01/01/2005 p.72 Uncut
"[T]his is an engrossing, anti-romantic movie about that bloody fist of an organ, the human heart." 02/01/2005 p.99 Chicago Sun-Times
"They are all so very articulate, which is refreshing..." 12/03/2004 p.27 Sight and Sound
"[The performances] are strong and display a readiness to engage in the ugliness of the parts. Julia Roberts is refreshingly understated." 02/01/2005 p.45-7 Ultimate DVD
3 stars out of 5 -- "A faithful screen adaptation of Patrick Marber's play....It's witty and well performed..." 12/01/2007 p.85 ReelViews 9 of 10
The film is notable for its frank dialogue. There's plenty of profanity and also a host of interesting observations. (Although these characters speak with an erudition not found in conversations between real people.) Closer is talky, but in a smart way...Movies that look deeply into the human soul and uncover putrefaction are hard sells. But they are also some of the most fascinating films to be found. Are Nichols and Marber's characters too cynically drawn? Perhaps. Do they occasionally seem like marionettes manipulated by a clever writer? Yes. But those things don't diminish the film's compelling emotional qualities. Closer is powerful and disturbing stuff. It is not life-affirming, and it's not for those who want to leave a movie theater uplifted and convinced that fairy tale endings can happen. And this is most definitely not a date movie. But if you appreciate films that are more substance than style, that take challenges and don't follow formulas, and that feature Oscar-caliber performances, Closer is not to be missed. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 10 of 10
Mike Nichols' "Closer" is a movie about four people who richly deserve one another. Fascinated by the game of love, seduced by seduction itself, they play at sincere, truthful relationships which are lies in almost every respect, except their desire to sleep with each other. All four are smart and ferociously articulate, adept at seeming forthright and sincere even in their most shameless deceptions...There's a creepy fascination in the way these four characters stage their affairs while occupying impeccable lifestyles. They dress and present themselves handsomely. They fit right in at the opening of Anna's photography exhibition. (One of the photographs shows Alice with tears on her face as she discerns that Dan was unfaithful with Anna; that's the stuff that art is made of, isn't it?) They move in that London tourists never quite see, the London of trendy restaurants on dodgy streets, and flats that are a compromise between affluence and the exorbitant price of housing. - Roger Ebert
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