Closer MPAA Rating: R Entertainment: +1 Content: -4

Dan (Jude Law), an obituary writer for a London newspaper, rescues tourist Alice (Natalie Portman), a young stripper from New York who falls in front of a car at a busy intersection. She moves in with him, and later Dan meets Anna (Julia Roberts), a successful commercial photographer, and decides to pursue her. Larry (Clive Owen), a doctor who talks dirty with Dan on the Internet, thinks his chat-room partner is named Anna. The real Anna and Larry meet and fall in love, adding a new layer to a sordid tale of betrayal and lies as the two couples make a complete mess of their lives. Closer supports the current reality craze by thinking the public wants to hear and see just how disgusting human beings can be. This comedy/drama has no plot, no resolution and no redemption, leaving viewers feeling dirty and depressed.

Described as a study of adult relationships, Closer makes one wonder if the author was using four dogs in heat as his point of reference. Starting with the pornographic chat-room exchange, the subject of conversation is the characters sex habits. The four cannot decide whether the truth hurts, so they go back and forth with brutal frankness regarding their infidelities. Especially offensive are frequent, filthy references to sex acts and body parts, all a vivid portrayal of how one body part, the tongue, is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body and that it corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell (James 3:6). There is no on-camera sex, but Alice performs a lewd pole dance, and a very long club scene between Larry and Alice implies full nudity. There are reports that the scene was shot with full frontal nudity and was cut at actor Portmans insistence. Even so, Closer comes very close to an NC-17 rating while it nails a solid 4 from Preview.

Preview Reviewer: Mary Draughon
Distributor: Columbia