'Closer,' yet brutally so

Good way to pick up girls: wait for them to get hit by car, hover worriedly as they come to, escort to hospital, and trade witty banter while waiting for turn in ER.

At least, that's the way that Dan (Jude Law) meets Alice (Natalie Portman, in her second doctor's waiting-room, meet-cute scene of the year; see Garden State). And so begins Closer, a cool four-way roundelay about lust, longing and the cruel things people do to one another in the name of love.

Directed by Mike Nichols, and adapted by Patrick Marber from his play of the same name, Closer charts a time line of emotional highs and lows in two couples' relationships - and charts the two couples' fateful lines of intersection.

One day Dan, a writer, meets Anna (Julia Roberts), a photographer. Something clicks (in addition to her lens - she's taking his portrait). Alice, who has a waify way about her and a stripper's curriculum vitae, susses out Dan's fevered attraction right away. Later, Alice meets Larry (Clive Owen), Anna's dermatologist beau, who originally hooked up with Anna thanks to Dan - and some late-night cyber-exchanges on an anonymous sex chat room.

These being modern, adult folks, when infidelity strikes the parties feel compelled to tell the truth to their respective, betrayed, partners. And in Closer, such declarations become weapons of mass destruction.

Nichols has covered this ground before, in the prehistoric days before the Internet, with his Burton-Taylor screamfest Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and the somewhat sunnier (ha!) Carnal Knowledge. There's a line from Jules Feiffer's Carnal Knowledge script that didn't make it to the movie: "Boys begin life not liking girls; later they don't change, they just get horny." If this isn't exactly the philosophy behind Dan and Larry's modus operandi in Closer, it comes, um, close.

Nichols' Closer is a model of refinement, of upmarket trappings, cosmopolitan sophistication. The setting is that most international of cities, London. The apartments are lofty and finely appointed, the jobs are high-income (even Alice's lap-dancer gig), the locales include an art gallery, an opera house, a sky-high restaurant with views to die for.

And the behavior: one step short of animal.

The acting is swell. Law's charm-boy insouciance is tempered with an air of quiet despair. Owen, who had Law's part in the original London stage production, gets most of Marber's best, cutting lines. Roberts presents a grown-up sort of person, amused, bemused, bright, wary - it's refreshing to see her do something other than her customary, teeth-sparkling star turn. And Portman, well, she shines. It's a performance that really does mark her entrance into movie adulthood.

For all its handsomeness (Stephen Goldblatt's cinematography is crisp, clear-eyed) and its high-cheekboned cast, Closer, in the end, lacks a certain heft. The language and the actions of the characters are brutal and devastating. The movie itself, a little too nice.

Contact movie critic Steven Rea

at 215-854-5629 or srea@phillynews.com.

Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/stevenrea.

Closer *** (out of four stars)

Produced by Mike Nichols, John Calley and Cary Brokaw, directed by Nichols, written by Patrick Marber, photography by Stephen Goldblatt, music by various artists, distributed by Columbia Pictures.

Running time: 1 hour, 41 mins.

Anna. . . Julia Roberts

Dan. . . Jude Law

Alice. . . Natalie Portman

Larry. . . Clive Owen

Parent's guide: R (profanity, nudity, adult themes)

Playing at: area theaters