'People are filthy, they're not worth lifting a finger for.' Closer conveys this sentiment more powerfully than anything else.

| Feb 15, 2021

Clive Owen gives the deepest and most emotionally nuanced performance as a dermatologist desperate for love and loyalty, and Natalie Portman is a close second as the coy stripper beholden to Jude Law's self-centered, stalled writer.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 6, 2020

Closer's world is a gentle one, a place of kindness. It is these people who are bringing spite into it.

| Jan 18, 2020

Each frame of the film seems infused with vibrant life, even when the tone switches from dark to darker.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 5, 2019

For all its stunt casting and knee-jerk sexual frankness, Closer gives an underlying resonance to an emotional world that is normally the preserve of glossy soap operas.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 23, 2019

Closer takes the traditional notion of romance and attempts to batter it into submission, mostly through the constant application of swear words.

| Aug 24, 2017

The heart isn't a fist any more than the hand is a foot, and anyway there's no fist so tight that doesn't unfold into an open hand sometime. The movie is like a comedy someone dipped in a solvent.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Jun 4, 2014

Searing story of betrayal isn't for kids.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 22, 2010

Closer is no joke and it's got the brave, mature performances of an all-star cast to prove it. It's a movie in which characters feel each other up with their hands and knock each other down with words.

| Original Score: 74/100 | Jun 7, 2010

With a better script, Closer could have been compelling romantic drama; instead, it's little more than clichéd nonsense.

| Original Score: 34/100 | Sep 26, 2009

Nichols ... simply stuns with a beautiful production, excellent script, unconventional and rather hateful story, and excellent acting all around.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 29, 2009

Mike Nichols teases up a similar level of emotional dysfunction to "Carnal Knowledge" with a filmic rendition of Patrick Marber's stage play about sexual one-ups-man-ship.

| Original Score: B- | Apr 18, 2009

Like dramas by Pinter and others, what seems trenchant and perfectly pitched in the theater can come off as arch even when skillfully transferred to film.

Full Review | Mar 19, 2009

Four beautiful, despicable characters find everything but love in this borderline sadistic battle of words from Mike Nichols.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 27, 2007

It's only as good as its cast. Fortunately, it's a good cast.

| Original Score: B | Jul 30, 2007

Marber looks at farcical giddiness with a hard-won sobriety.... Closer is a voguish farce that, rather than making you wish you were like the characters, makes you wish that you hadn't been.

| May 28, 2007

click to read article [Greek]

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 31, 2006

Owen and Portman give excellent, committed performances, leaving Law and Roberts in the shade.

| Jun 24, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 1, 2006

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 11, 2006