The end of the month is coming up fast, and Netflix is about to drop a number of films on May 31.
Goodfellas, Christopher Nolan‘s Dark Knight trilogy, Pride & Prejudice and the Ted movies are all on their way out the door. But for the Watch With Us team, the one great movie on Netflix that you have to watch before it leaves in June is Closer.
Mike Nichols — the Oscar-winning director of The Graduate and one of the few who have ever achieved EGOT status — adapted Patrick Marber‘s stage play of the same name in 2004. Marber also wrote the script for the film, which expanded upon his original story.
This romantic drama attracted a dream cast including Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen in the leading roles. Without those performers, Closer may not have had the same impact.
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Natalie Portman Gives One of Her Best Performances
Portman was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her turn as Alice Ayres, a young woman who has a tumultuous relationship with Dan Woolf (Law). Alice is true to Dan, but he’s got a wandering eye for an older woman, Anna Cameron (Roberts), whom the couple meets when she’s hired to take Dan’s portrait.
The clip featured above takes place during that meeting as Alice confronts Anna about Dan’s invitation to have an affair. Portman’s emotional vulnerability in that scene carries over to the rest of the movie as well. She’s capable of hurting Dan as well, but Alice is the only one of the four primary characters who isn’t actively looking to cheat on her partner. Alice is the beating heart of this movie, and Portman carries the audience’s sympathy better than any of her co-stars.
It Upends Traditional Romantic Relationships
Considering that Closer is now 21 years old, it would be inaccurate to say that it’s a dark reflection of modern romance. Times have changed considerably since this film was released, and the original play will celebrate its 30th anniversary in 1997. While it isn’t an up-to-date story, it is interesting to see how the two primary couples, Dan and Alice & Anna and Larry Gray (Owen), cross paths and switch partners.
Dan and Anna’s mutual attraction is established early on, but his cruel practical joke on Larry inadvertently sends him into his relationship with Anna. Later in the film, Larry tries to get back at Dan by pursuing Alice, with middling results. All four of these characters want to love and be loved, but the men can’t seem to resist a chance to hurt each other through their current and former partners. The only character in this quartet who comes off as a genuinely decent person is Alice, and even she’s got her flaws.
The Movie Changes the Ending
Without spoiling the conclusion or the aftermath of these messy relationships, it’s worth noting that Marber’s stage play has a much darker ending than the film does. There’s a tragedy in the play that doesn’t ultimately come to pass in the movie, although that could simply be because the film stops before it could happen. But that’s the kind of change that gives Closer a little bit more hopeful ending than it otherwise would have had.
Ultimately, that small hope is more fulfilling than the bleak nature of Marber’s original conclusion. It was the right choice for the movie, and Closer is better for it.
Closer is streaming on Netflix.
