#closermovie

"You don't know the first thing about love, because you don't understand compromise."

— Closer (2004) dir. Mike Nichols

🎬 Closer (2004) — A Eucharist of Desire

A personal review by Ryan Platz

Some films hit like scripture. Closer is one of them.

When I first saw it, I knew it wasn’t just about relationships or betrayal — it was a liturgy. Mike Nichols, in what I see as one of his most sculpted, underrated masterworks, creates a cinematic Mass: precise, intimate, and full of sacrificial offerings disguised as love.

It’s based on the stage play by Patrick Marber, and you can feel the theatrical blood pumping through the dialogue. Every line is sharp as Communion wine. Every silence is heavy with meaning.

The whole thing opens with Damien Rice’s “The Blower’s Daughter,” and from that first line — “And so it is…” — I felt it. That’s how scripture begins. That’s how prophecy begins. That’s how heartbreak begins when it’s already been written in the stars.

The characters don’t just fall in and out of love — they offer themselves, like broken chalices. Alice (Natalie Portman) gives her real name, her body, her mystery — then disappears like a Magdalene. Dan (Jude Law) wants love but craves ownership. Anna (Julia Roberts) is a quiet Madonna who looks like salvation but doesn’t have peace to give. And Larry (Clive Owen) — honestly? He’s the only one who tells the truth. It’s brutal, but it’s a kind of priesthood.

The music is holy, too. Nichols weaves Damien Rice and Mozart with such divine intentionality it hurts. “The Blower’s Daughter” plays at the beginning and end — the loop of obsession. And in the middle: arias from Così fan tutte, an opera literally about love’s duplicity. It’s not just scoring — it’s theological stitching.

There’s a moment in the strip club — Alice under blue light, behind glass — and I swear it’s Gethsemane. She’s exposed, judged, worshipped, crucified, and still doesn’t give her name. That’s sacred refusal. That’s power.

When Larry demands, “Tell me the truth,” it echoes Pilate. And when Dan looks at her through the glass and asks, “Where is this love?” — it’s not just a man begging for answers. It’s humanity asking God.

Visually, the film is sculpted. Cold blues, soft focus, faces like stained glass windows. Everything about it feels intentional, carved. The photography by Stephen Goldblatt is pure discipline.

Closer isn’t just about romance — it’s about the cost of loving without reverence, of speaking truth without grace, of consuming people like sacraments and forgetting they bleed.

For me, this film is a dark Eucharist. Every time someone says “I love you,” it sounds like a prayer someone once believed in. But no one’s clean here. Everyone’s drunk on longing, starving for God, and unable to look away.

“I can’t take my eyes off of you… until I find somebody new.”

That’s the final line. That’s the broken benediction.

Closer is one of the most spiritually haunting films I’ve ever seen. It deserves more than the praise it got — it deserves recognition as a modern passion play.

And in my experience, when a film like this speaks, I listen.

✨ What Closer Says About the Commandments, the Sacred, and Divine Justice:

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❌ “Thou shalt not bear false witness”

Nearly every character lies — sometimes to protect, sometimes to manipulate, sometimes because they don’t know who they are.

But the demand for truth becomes relentless: “Tell me the truth!”

In Closer, lies don’t just damage relationships — they strip the soul.

And yet when truth is finally told, it doesn’t always bring healing. It brings judgment, humiliation, or power struggles.

This isn’t about neat moral lessons — this is divine fire: what happens when the soul asks for truth but cannot bear it.

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💔 “Thou shalt not commit adultery”

This commandment is the film’s bleeding heart. Adultery is everywhere — emotional, physical, spiritual.

But Closer doesn’t just condemn it in a traditional moralistic way — it exposes the ache beneath it.

These people are unfaithful because they are lost.

They want salvation, but they don’t know the source.

And yet divine justice still plays out: every act of betrayal comes full circle.

Dan loses both women. Larry is humiliated and ultimately left alone. Anna can’t find peace.

Alice, who arguably sins the least and gives the most, walks away clean — the Magdalene made mysterious again.

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🕊️ “Honor thy father and mother” / “Thou shalt not covet” / “Thou shalt not steal”

These commandments are more implicit — about respect, boundaries, sacred longing.

In Closer, boundaries are blurred. People covet others’ relationships. They steal intimacy. They dishonor bodies.

And yet… even in the wreckage, there is a strange longing for holiness.

Everyone wants to be loved fully. But they don’t know how to love without devouring.

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🌹 Sensuality as Sacred — But Lust as Dangerous

This is one of Closer’s most painful insights:

• Sensuality, when offered freely, in honesty, can be healing. There are moments in this film that feel like Eucharist — where love is shared, not weaponized.

• But lust — when it’s about control, hunger, or escape — becomes dangerous. It mimics love but lacks spirit.

“I love you” is said so many times in this film — but it often means: “I need you to make me feel real.”

When Alice dances behind the glass, we see the difference. She’s sensual, but not lustful. She is in control. She knows the gaze is consuming her — and yet, she denies them her name.

That is sacred sensuality: when the body is offered with dignity, not as a product.

Lust, by contrast, is what Dan practices when he “falls” for Anna. It’s quick. It’s selfish. It’s trying to claim a soul without giving one.

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⚖️ Divine Justice in Closer

God isn’t absent in Closer — God is watching in silence.

Justice doesn’t arrive with thunder — it comes through consequences.

• Those who lie are isolated.

• Those who betray are betrayed.

• Those who demand truth but can’t offer it are exposed.

• And the only character who loves freely, gives without domination, and walks away without bitterness — Alice — is the only one who finds peace.

Her final scene, walking alone, name reclaimed, bathed in natural light — that is divine justice.

She doesn’t need revenge. She gets resurrection.

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Final Thought:

Closer shows that when we treat each other as objects, even in the name of love, we invoke the breaking of commandments.

But when we recognize the sacred in one another’s desire, fragility, and truth, we get a glimpse of what the commandments were protecting all along.

Love is not possession.

Truth is not a weapon.

Bodies are not currency.

The film isn’t moralistic — it’s prophetic.

It doesn’t punish its characters — it reveals them.

And in that exposure, divine justice is quietly fulfilled.