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I am not surprised to read that CLOSER is also play since I left the theater thinking that this doesn't seem like a story to be filmed. There is precious little to work with here cinematic ally but Nichols likes his bleakness, cold lighting, dull colors and he is right at home with those techniques in this movie. These are four joyless characters, and the filming reflects this--there is nothing sensual about the movie--no colors, no soft textures, no food, no wine, nothing that reminds us of the link between sensuality and love. And that's an important missing ingredient since love is paraded around as the the subject of all of their conversations. CLOSER is love minus the joy of feeling, which is to say, the opposite of love. Lack of sensuality is what makes pornography and CLOSER isn't far from that kind of portrayal.

These characters are one dimensional and they strike the same note too often, but let's toss aside realism and viewed from a metaphorical perspective of power masked as love, the movie succeeds. At one point a character says "this is not a war" but of course it is. What else could you call deliberate cruelty in order to gain power over another? The women and men vie for power and the men are also at war with each other. I recognized male sexuality as territoriality easily in the film but the female sexuality was harder to pin down (ah, no pun intended). The female roles in this movie are something I've never quite seen before, as equally brutal about sexuality and power as are the men. There is no effort in this movie to walk the fine line between Madonna and whore--which is, of course, closer to the truth. I think the movie misses the mark, however, in that there is almost no exploration into the women's feelings about each other. There is an implicit sexism in this movie in that men can sustain many conflicts whereas women can only handle one gender at a time. We all know this isn't true and the movie suffers a little from this lack of recognition. As anyone knows, relationships between women after the same men are complicated, highly charged and very interesting. The one scene between the women merely serves to set up another scene between a couple. What a HUGE letdown. Kundera didn't do that to us in THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING, by the way. Note how that scene in Kundera's book and in the movie adds an entire layer to the story that CLOSER lacks altogether. It doesn't have to be kindness that these women find, of course, but they would have feelings about one another equally as interesting as those with which the men grapple. That was the missed opportunity to strike another note, in my opinion.

There is talk of children between the couples but this sounds as depthless as the conversations about love. They know what they're supposed to say and do only they have no idea how to reconcile the fact that they don't want to say or do those things. Society, although open to new roles for women (by economic necessity in my opinion), is still a restrictive force. Celibacy means failure; multiple partners means failure. One is supposed to exist only in the "happy couples" format once one reaches a certain age. This is also one of those movies where no one has any parents or friends, heightening the importance of their romances and their dalliances.

This movie got one thing right, though--the old adage is b.s. on screen--the closest way to a man's heart is not through his stomach. Just ask Godard and Fellini.

I had written a negative review of ONE HOUR PHOTO a couple of years ago when it came out and then regretted writing it because I've since undertaken a more studied approach to films. So, I thought, I'll delete that comment and watch it again in the spirit of anticipating artistry. I'll be more charitable, I thought, see things that I missed before; I'll come out a fan. Of course, you know from my heavy-handed foreshadowing (borrowing one of the director's approaches) that it never happened. I like this film much less than I did the first time.

To be fair, there are some successful aspects of this enterprise. At one point I noted that the film technique far surpasses the story. The movie is slick-looking, indeed. The use of color is rampant, albeit largely meaningless. The lighting is affective and needs desperately to be tied to a story and a character. The acting never caught my attention which is a good thing.

But the movie is so painfully plodding that I thought at one point that the filmmaker must be a famous person's son who had a lot of money and a lot of Hollywood ties (look at the cast--even the day roles are names) and a nebulous idea that he ultimately couldn't pull off. I haven't yet investigated that theory but I did read that this is a former music video director. That explains a lot--visuals without meaning. This movie is contrived, manipulative, and follows all of the Hollywood clichés--it just LOOKS like it doesn't. One can only guess at the positive critical responses, but I'll bet you that none of the critics watched it a second time.

This movie reminds me of smart people who want to write but who don't read. They're capable, perhaps, but nearly knowledge-free of the greatness in their chosen medium. As one IMDb user put it (and I'm sorry I can't remember who) "art isn't easy."

This is not a movie. It is a filmed play, which is a kind of silly idea in my opinion. It certainly relieves several people working on a movie from having to be very creative in their jobs, such as the director and the cinematographer. Even the editor has it easy, unless they are truly invested in making it visually interesting. Because Oleanna is nothing if not a visual bore. Mamet has never cared much for setting, lighting, acting, or any of the technical devices that filmmakers use to weave together an interesting piece of film. I don't understand why he even makes movies since he is so obviously disinterested in film-making as an art form. One could say money or a larger audience for his solipsistic dialogue and I would agree on both counts.

I confess that I am one of those people who finds Mamet dialogue overwrought, and again, solipsistic. If it is the genius of great playwrights to find unique voices for their characters, Mamet has found only his own voice which he crams through whatever characters are handy. At an amazing velocity. I've never witnessed characters who say so much and yet so little that is meaningful. Certainly I can understand that we humans do use language this way and perhaps that is the point. But do I need two hours of that to get the point? Of course there is another point, except that no one can figure it out. And when no one (meaning professional critics and professors) can figure it out it suddenly takes on the "provocative" label, and the rest of us are reduced to near idiots if we disagree with the label--and Mamet adds another trophy to his wall of narcissism. He argues with himself in this movie and the rest of us are forced to listen (unless we turn it off which I considered about every five minutes). I didn't turn it off because of one thing, however: I wanted to read all of the gushing reviews from people who believe that it sounds like a piece of art so it must be a piece of art. Well, it is certainly a piece of something, but art it isn't.