Saturday turned into a really rather hectic day. In the early afternoon we went to see Closer at the Clapham Picture House. A stroke of genius on my part, I have to say. When we got there, the evening was already sold out; when we emerged the late afternoon was also sold out. And there was only a couple of spare seats in our showing.
It wasn't quite as I expected. I think I had imagined that it would feature a lot more naked flesh and copulatory writhings. Quite the opposite, in fact, it was extraordinarily chaste. It was a dialogue- based work with a significant element of psychology. A tight ensemble piece with only the four main characters mattering.
I thought that Julia Roberts and Jude Law were very good, but the real stars were Clive Owen and Natalie Portman. I guess they are lesser stars - not stars at all - hence their nominations for 'Best Supporting' Oscars. A perfect example of the cynicism of Hollywood driven by commercial not artistic considerations.
I thought the dialogue was excellent -for example, when Jude Law told Natalie Portman and Julia Roberts told Clive Owen that it was over, I really believed that I was inside those arguments, not observing some artifice of a TV lackey divorced from reality.
To a limited extent it was thought provoking. Especially the way that Jude Law equivocated between the two women. It did not cliché him as a serial philanderer, but portrayed him as a reasonable person genuinely torn between two women. I thought the Clive Owen character was extraordinarily three-dimensional - it was impossible to decide whether or not to like him.
I saw some advertising that it is the most significant film of the year. I think that is overhype.
And I am somewhat annoyed it has revealed the secret of Postman's Park
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