Opinion: Brilliant but unsettling dialogue drives 'Closer'

“Depressives don’t,” the good doctor replies. “They want to be depressed.”

This blunt and telling bit is a prime example of the brilliant dialogue that is the driving force behind director Mike Nichols’ latest film, “Closer.”

Nichols, who began his career as a comedian with partner Elaine May, is no stranger to sexual/social commentary and acerbic dialogue. He directed not only “The Graduate,” but also “Carnal Knowledge” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

Working with a screenplay by Patrick Marber, who based the work on his own critically acclaimed play that opened in London in 1997, Nichols treads ground where few directors have gone in recent years.

The only other recent films in the vein of “Closer” that come to mind are the brutally frank works of Neil LaBute – “In the Company of Men” and “Your Friends and Neighbors.”

While there are no sex scenes per se – Nichols even cut a scene where Natalie Portman, who plays a stripper, appeared topless – the talk is sexually charged, and many viewers may find it offensive.

Jude Law plays Daniel Wolf, an obituary writer for a London paper and an aspiring novelist.

A minor traffic accident puts him in the company of the self-described “waif,” Alice, a former stripper who has relocated to London and is working as a waitress.

He takes her to hospital (the Brits drop the “the” from the phrase) to get her wounds tended to, and the two hit it off immediately.

The film then jumps ahead in time.

Dan is having his picture taken for the jacket of his forthcoming novel, titled “Alice.” He’s been living with her since their initial meeting, but judging from his overt sexual advances toward the photographer Anna (played by Julia Roberts in her finest role in years), he’s not exactly a one-woman man.

Anna is recently divorced, but she shuns Dan’s amorous come-ons because of his admitted relationship with Alice.

The next scene is one of the most curious in the film, but it sets up the rest of the story.

Dan is messing around on the Internet in a chat room and is contacted by a doctor named Larry (Clive Owen). Dan pretends to be a woman – a rather randy woman at that – and manages to get Dr. Larry quite interested, even aroused.

Dan signs off as “Anna” and tells the doctor to meet “her” at the London Aquarium the next day.

He knows the real Anna frequents the aquarium to get photos for her upcoming exhibit, titled “Strangers.”

Larry walks around the aquarium, spies the lone Anna, asks her if she is Anna, and assumes he’s found the woman who was so ready to have a go at it the day before on the ‘Net. Anna is nonplussed at what Larry is saying to her, but she soon comes to the right conclusion. She tells Larry he’s the victim of a little hoax.

The two become friends and eventually marry.

“Closer” jumps ahead in time again, and we find that even though Dan and Alice are still together and Anna and Larry are married, not all is said and done.

The intricacies of the sexual liaisons among the quartet are complex, riveting and, at times, very unsettling.

Marber’s dialogue cuts to the quick and even though the film has location shots, it’s evident that the original work was a stage play. Outside of the four main characters, there are virtually no other speaking parts.

Translating a stage production into film can be a tricky proposition but Marber and Nichols manage this endeavor quite well. Fans of the play (which I have neither seen, nor had even heard of before doing research for this review) point to the fact that the story’s ending has been changed – some feel softened – to be more palatable to movie audiences.

Marber says he feels his reworking befits the original, and he has no qualms about changing the ending. It was his, not Nichols’ or the film company’s, idea. As far as softening the affair, no one will ever accuse “Closer,” the movie, to be a “feel good” film and there is not a typical Hollywood “fairy tale” finale.

It’s a great film if you are not offended by intensely emotional, and sexually frank, dialogue.

At 74, Nichols, whose last project was the brilliant HBO mini-series “Angels in America,” proves he still has the knack for social/sexual commentary.

Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.