Fooling Around

Mike Nichols is the grand old man of movies about waning love and infidelity, going all the way back to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf (1966), The Graduate (1967), and Carnal Knowledge (1971).

Now comes Closer, in which Julia Roberts plays Anna, a thirty-something woman going through her second marriage with Larry (Clive Owen), while having an affair with another man, Dan (Jude Law). A little twisted, but stranger things have happened in relationships. Where it becomes a little more perverse is Larry has a crush on Dan’s girlfriend, Alice (Natalie Portman), a very young former stripper.

But does director Nichols have anything new to say to a younger audience who’ve learned to shrug at divorce, so commonplace among their parents’ generation? After all, three marriages before the age of 45 have become the new two.

The Tyee asked bonafide twenty-somethings Caroline Dobuzinskis and Scott Deveau to take in Closer and instant message back and forth afterwards. Here’s the thread:

Caroline: Closer is about showing the ugly side of uncommitted relationships, the effects of the all-too-common fear of commitment… 

Scott: It also shows the side of the relationship your partners don't usually get to see - like those little flirty scenes at the art gallery or the on the bus. “When the cats away,” kind of situations. It’s about affecting someone, not necessarily in a good way, so they can't get over you, without wanting to be in that relationship. 

And it does show what happens when two people should just break up, but keep it going. Jude Law's character Dan expresses it best, "She's completely lovable and completely unleavable."

Caroline: Yeah, but lovable how?  Maybe what they had was a little bit of infatuation but not real love. That's the thing; the whole movie is based on looks, little glances, nothing really meaningful.  Love at first sight might happen but it needs to develop beyond the initial infatuation.

Scott: But that doesn't mean you don't THINK it's love. I mean these characters are obviously incapable of meaningful relationships, but they keep trying, anywhere and everywhere.

Caroline: But they are just playing a game. It's a lot like dating when you are in your twenties, not really looking for anything serious, always looking for something better.

Scott: So you have these people who are obviously not seeing each other for who they really are. And they end up torturing each other. You’re right; it is like dating in your twenties...

Caroline: Exactly, and it is even more dynamic now that there are so many more ways to meet people. You can type away on your computer in the hopes of meeting someone that could be your perfect match.

Scott: Closer dwells a lot on the nature of fidelity too.  Now the Internet allows for all kinds of discreet relationships, which changes things…

Caroline: It raises the kind of technical questions that, often, seem ridiculous.  Like: Did Bill Clinton, technically, have sexual relations with that woman?

Scott: But there are times, with email or on an instant messenger system, when you can kind of flirt innocently - so that there is no follow-through or human contact - but the things that are said are completely over the top.  If your girlfriend found a transcript, she'd probably kill you.  I’ve also found flirting with exes happens quite a bit online.

Caroline: It's like thinking about a fantasy but instead of just thinking about it you have this written evidence of it. But it’s not completely harmless.  If someone finds an email their partner wrote that describes their intentions of breaking up, isn't that meaningful?

Scott: Definitely, but in Closer, you have this casual cyber fantasy world played out.

Dan and Larry have extremely graphic sex online. But Larry thinks Dan is a woman, surely that's not considered cheating? Anymore than a Playboy magazine is considered cheating…

Caroline: The difference between someone looking at Playboy magazine and someone chatting online with someone is that there someone else involved online.  That constitutes a relationship, even if it is twisted and false.

Scott: I agree, if you know the person, or make some arrangements to meet them. But if it's just cyber-fantasy with strangers, is it cheating?  Is there a Sex and the City rule about that?

Caroline: It may not technically be cheating but it just gets ridiculous when people make those little technical distinctions in relationships. Trust and love aren't things you can really make rules to measure. It’s more about making compromises based on how one’s partner feels. 

Scott: I'm not sure that kind of idealism plays out in real life when you're sitting around bored.

Caroline: Well, maybe not when you are bored. But people who are bored tend to be boring. That doesn't do well in relationships. There should be something more exciting and substantial. If it takes some trust to get there, so be it.

Scott: Trust makes relationships exciting?!!!!???!!!!  No one has ever said that before.

Caroline: Well okay, maybe a little bit of guilt and a dose of passion can be more exciting in the very start of a relationship.  But trust can get you to a stronger, more exciting bond.

Scott: In Closer, the characters are completely without empathy or any bond formed from trust. Clive Owen’s character, Larry, quite clearly has a pornographic obsession with prostitution and can’t shake it. He sees all his women as the archetypical prostitute - with the exception of Anna, initially.  But he cheats on her with a hooker, and then eventually treats her like one. He is a self-professed caveman.

But some people are certainly more interested in what a person does for a living. Or what type of car they drive. Not about the person.

Caroline: Yes, and everyone in the film is a bit of an archetype.  Jude Law plays Dan, the naive boyish guy with the good looks.  Natalie Portman plays Alice, the clingy ingenue.  Julia Roberts is the independent and successful, attractive older woman. Clive Owen is the strong man, the provider. And that is just the thing - do you have to sell yourself as a certain type in order to attract someone?  Is it no longer good enough just to be a good person to be attractive, do you have to sell yourself as something?

Scott: This is the problem the characters run into.  Dan is at a point where he's obviously too old to be dating a girl (Portman), but too immature to be dating a woman (Roberts).

Dan is Alice's protector; he 'saves' her from her car crash.  She becomes subservient and he becomes bored. Anna is the older woman, but she's also at once distant and entirely dependent. The movie plays out like this: let’s see what happens when we put the older woman and the caveman together.  Now, let’s have the caveman and the young stripper together…  

Caroline: Maybe that's what the movie is trying to say. That's it's dangerous to go after just what someone represents...you have to know and love the whole package.  And people can be really quick to duck out when they find out the packaging was slightly misleading. You can see it in the high divorce rates.

Scott: Right, you also have an entire generation of twenty-somethings that duck out of relationships when they have a Seinfield moment with someone:  They're too much of a high talker, or they call you within three days of meeting you…

Caroline: Yeah, it's like people expect everything to come with disclaimers. Warning: this person may not be entirely as initially depicted.  If you get involved and something happens you can have a money back guarantee. And there ARE so many rules to follow - like the three-day calling rule.  Or how about not sleeping with someone until the third date. I mean who makes up these rules?

Scott: But they persist. So, where do they come from? And isn’t there is an element of truth to them?

Caroline: Definitely, but I can see that my friends who are living by their own rules, and following what they think is acceptable are a lot happier.

Scott: I see that too. Back to the dynamics of the movie; you have a series of vignettes.  Each one is a power struggle of some sort. And at the end of each, each character wants to be the one that twists the knife for the last time. How do you think this plays into the arbitrary rules we follow?

Caroline: Well those are the rules of being vengeful, of trying to hurt someone intentionally. I don't think those are spoken rules. They can just happen and make things really ugly.

Scott: I've been a few of those relationships.  Is it about coming out of a relationship with the upper hand so you can have closure?

Caroline: Well, I think that some people can try to use that method but everyone just comes out of it looking really bad in the end. Then it creates awkwardness and animosity in the future. It can be avoided I think.

Scott: And I think the chase is really exciting too.

Caroline: I don't think it's just about the fact that the chase is exciting. It's about the fact that having these beautiful, exciting, superficial relationships can be a thrill. It doesn't show the alternatives. Maybe there isn’t one. But in any case, the characters in Closer are not happy people. So let's hope there is an alternative.

Scott: Can you imagine if there isn't?  Say, sitting at forty watching television with your wife, who you haven't spoken to in the last year, let alone made love to in that time.

Caroline: Yeah, but that's a choice to do that. And from my experience, the people who don't try to strengthen the relationship, who take shortcuts or just go for the exciting route are not the happiest ones. They get stuck behind when everyone else moves forward with their lives.

Scott: Did I mention my one of my best friends just got engaged and I am still single?

Caroline: That’s alright, you’re still young. In any case, I think what Closer is trying to say is that if you like someone just because of what they do, or how they look or a few qualities that could list on a resume, it's not enough. There aren’t any rules to measure love. 

Scott: I tell you, no matter what happens, if Natalie Portman submits her resume, she's hired.

Caroline: I'll take Jude Law as a personal assistant in that case.

Caroline Dobuzinskis is an intern, and Scott Deveau a staff writer, at The Tyee.