RATING: B

Starring: Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Clive Owen. Costume Designer Ann Roth, Edited by John Bloom, Antonia Van Dimmelen, Production Designer Tim Hatley, Director of Photography Stephen Goldblatt, Executive Producers Scott Rudin, Celia Costas, Robert Fox, Based on the play by Patrick Marber, Screenplay by Patrick Marber, Produced by Mike Nichols, John Calley, Cary Brokaw, Directed by Mike Nichols.

Rated R, Running Time 102 mins., 1.85 to 1 Academy Standard Aspect Ratio.

No stranger to stories about relationships, director Mike Nichols returns to the silver screen with "Closer" a wonderful adaptation of Patrick Marber's play of sexual politics, selfishness, love, desire and betrayal. This emotionally involving play is at often times funny and graphically brutal in its story of four individuals who've each fallen victim to the illusion of love. Set in London, Natalie Portman stars as Alice, a waif American who literally falls into the arms of obituary columnist Dan (Jude Law) when she's hit by a cab after exchanging passing glances. A year and a half later the two are living together and Dan finds himself smitten with Anna (Julia Roberts) a portrait photographer taking his photo for the cover of a novel he’s based on Alice’s life.

Six months later the playful Dan impersonates Anna in an online sex chat and meets dermatologist Larry (Clive Owen). As a joke he arranges the two to meet, but unexpectedly they fall in love and marry. Months later, Dan and Anna cross paths at her art exhibit where their chemistry is apparent to their significant others, but doesn't stop them from engaging in a year long affair that results in break-ups on both sides. “Closer’s” story is told in ten acts that are each divided by single cuts or fade outs. Told over a span of four years the passage of time is abrupt and can be jarring, but it’s a unique tool designed to show us just how these characters haven’t changed throughout the years. You get the impression of “Didn’t we just leave this party?”

After a series of generic roles, Julia Roberts returns to fine form as Anna, a woman unaware of her manipulative power. She believes she’s going after what she wants in her affair with Dan, but can not control her guilt which makes her compulsive. She also begins to figure him out and doesn’t like what she discovers as their relationship progresses:

Anna: "You wanted excitement. Love bores you."
Dan: "No...it disappoints me."

When Anna cheats with Larry so he’ll sign off on their divorce, Dan can’t move past it and doesn’t believe she did it out of guilt, but because she knew she could.

Dan: "Why didn't you lie to me?"
Anna: "We said we'd tell each other the truth."
Dan: "What's so good about the truth? Try lying for a change--it's the currency of the world."

Jude Law, who has been suffering from massive over-exposure doesn’t play a womanizer, but a dimensional guy who out of cowardice allows his relationship with ideal Alice to fall apart so he can pursue his ‘true love” Anna. This is Law’s best performance this year and he and Owen take Marber’s natural dialogue and fire off at each other with convincing aggressiveness:

Dan: "I love her."
Larry: "Boo hoo, so do I. You don't love Anna, you love yourself"
Dan: "...you love her like a dog loves its owner"
Larry: "And the owner loves the dog for doing so."

The original play "Closer" ran at London's Royal National Theatre in 1997 where Clive Owen originated the role of Dan. Owen was smart enough to elect to take the role of Larry because he wanted to approach the material from a fresh perspective. Not only does he give a raw portrayal of a man eager to fight for a relationship that’s an illusion but his performance threatens to chew up the scenery. He knows that Anna will never fully love him but he doesn’t care. In the film’s most powerful scene, Larry confronts Anna about her affair by asking her to give the most graphic details:

Anna: "Why is the sex so important?"
Larry: "Because I'm a f**king CAVEMAN!"
Anna: "We did things that people who have sex do!"
Larry: "You're leaving me because you think you don't deserve happiness but you do."

Perhaps the most powerful performance of the film belongs to Natalie Portman’s Alice, they only member of this quartet who appears to have a conscience. Her initial love with Dan begins with the simple discovery that he cuts off the crust from his sandwiches and from that moment decides to devote herself to him. She may be the youngest of the four, but she’s the most experienced at the highs and lows of love. At twenty-three, Portman still has a virginal appearance, but any notion of that flies out the window with her convincing portrayal of a stripper. There has been much press about her nude scenes hitting the cutting room floor, but her seduction of a recently dumped Owen in a gentleman’s club is more powerful because of what is suggested in the editing. She’s also the only character who seems to come away with a lesson learned at the end of the story. Characters use the words "I love you" so often but as Alice says “you can't see it, touch it or feel it.” You can only “hear some words that you can't do anything with.”

For those familiar with the story, Marber's adaptation has not strayed from the text, but he's deleted two crucial scenes as well as several plot points. Both Anna and Alice have been made American and gone is their developing friendship. The discovery of the origin of Alice's name has been altered and a revelation involving her affliction with a mental disorder of the skin as well as the death of a major character has been omitted. These alterations have been made not to give the film a Hollywood feel but to chisel the story down to a leaner fighting weight, making it more brutal and believable. Already an experienced master within the mediums of film and theater, I like to think of Nichols' return to the silver screen as the third part of a trilogy of play adaptations that began with Margaret Edson’s "Wit" and recently Tony Kushner's "Angels in America." Nichols already had a great story with this well written play, but he's given it a cinematic feel with added realism. I can’t wait to see how he adapts “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” for the theater.

With all of its rich and honest dialogue, this film would certainly have suffered without a talented cast to back it up. “Closer” is about people, who don’t realize what they have until its too late, always looking for the next great love, or refusing to move on after losing one. The selfishness and the weapons of deceit, revenge and love that these characters wield are pretty low, but the talented cast makes us pity them instead of writing them off as a bunch of creeps. When Alice first meets Dan she says “Hallo, stranger”--two words that are used throughout the film. It isn’t far from the truth because through their struggles and confrontations after dealing with each other for such a long period this quartet of lovers doesn’t really know each other at all.