Come Closer

If the suspense has been killing you, my photo is in the post below this. I'm moving on with more material. :)

Warning: This is an extremely post-haste review of a movie released many months ago.

Closer is brilliant at times, and pathetically overintellectuallized at others.

I suppose you could say the movie’s a look at what happens when we want too much from love. I don’t know. Maybe that’s my subjectivity speaking.

The film’s about two couples who weave in and out of each others’ lives in an on-again, off-again spate of what's essentially emotional swinging.

It’s a little overwrought in its exclusivity when it comes to the conflicts, how each others’ spouse is always problem, but then so too are most shows that focus exclusively on a select group of people who happen upon each other to form a tight little network of syncopated experiences that resonate throughout each others’ lives.

In other words, it’s a little contrived.

But I have to say, I enjoy the occasional movie that takes a cynical look at human nature and its relationships. Maybe I’m far too introspective, but I imagine I’m not alone in my wonderings about why we do the shit we do, and god knows I done some shit.

I’m a very open person, most of the time. There are things I do not hesitate to share. But I have a lot of secrets, lies, and fears. They’re unattractive in the light, and keeping them in the dark makes me feel more presentable. I’m absolutely a person with great duality, but in a way that keeps me real for myself, nothing duplicitous, really.

It doesn’t mean I’m not honest in my relationships. I am. I’m just never completely present, that’s all.

I suspect that’s true of a lot of us. There are corners in our minds that seem vast and inviting sometimes, and it’s nice to stay in occasionally.

Mike Nichols, in all his overwrought style, often is capable of capturing the very ethos that dwells in most of us. It’s not a pretty portrait. The characters leave little room for sympathy this time out, despite all the melancholic, poignant close-ups, and it makes the film a little hard to swallow at times.

So too does the intermittent pretentiousness. Still, some interesting questions get raised about fidelity and trust, and how much “they” really have a right to know. I’m thinking it’s not a good flick to see with other-halves, unless you’ve got a pretty lusty and intellectual affair going on. It’s more a flick to watch with a friend you’re wise to never have gone down on, with whom conversation’s a strong but tempting factor in the relationship.

May I recommend a nice Zinfandel? And some distance on the couch.