Patrick Marber's stageplay comes to life in the 2004 film "Closer," directed by Mike Nichols. Marber also offered the screenplay for the motion picture version of this complete and total oddity of a relationship drama.

"Closer" follows two couples spanning over four years. Two British guys and two American ladies. Dan, played by Jude Law (Alfie), meets Alice, played by Natalie Portman (Garden State), after watching her get hit by a car and taking her the hospital. A year later, they are still a couple, and obituary writer Dan has a new novel coming out. When he meets photographer Anna, played by Julia Roberts (Ocean's 12), who's capturing his likeness for the back of his book cover, he falls for her. They end up kissing, but he kind of insults her and as far as we know, she hates him.

Later, Dan meets a skin doctor named Larry, played by Clive Owen (King Arthur), in an Internet sex chat room, while pretending to be Anna. Larry then meets the real Anna at an aquarium where Dan sent him to hook up for sex. The two figure out there's a practical joke being played and four months later, Anna has an exhibit up and is now Larry's girlfriend.

Dan and Alice show up to the exhibit, where Larry is kind of swept away by Alice, and Dan keeps hitting on Anna. After that scene, it is a year later, and Anna has been having an affair with Dan. She tells Larry. Dan also tells Alice, and she leaves him. Alice leaves Larry, even though they are now married.

Wait, it gets more interesting and bizarre. So, after some undetermined months, Anna is seeking a divorce and needs Larry to sign the papers. However, Larry will only sign if she sleeps with him one last time. Anna goes through with it out of guilt and tells Dan. Actually, Dan figured it out on his own. How? By looking at himself in the mirror. Weird, I tell you.

So, Larry, now heartbroken, goes to a strip club and finds Alice dancing there. He pays her for some time in the "private" room, where he hits on her the whole time. Eventually, as we find out, they slept together.

After another undetermined amount of time, Anna is back with Larry, and Dan starts crying to him like a baby. It's the first time the two men really confront each other, as far as the viewer is concerned, and the scene was both exciting and uncomfortable.

The picture ends with Dan making Alice confess she slept with Larry, while they were apart, to which Alice realizes she no longer loves Dan. She gets on a plane to go back to America, and that's…pretty much it.

The plot in "Closer," if there is one, basically focuses on four people who have problems with presenting themselves to other people, and always act without thinking. Since dialogue between characters runs by SO fast, without them taking time to think out their responses, I feel it's director Nichols (Angels in America, Postcards from the Edge) way of showing these people don't think before they speak, nor think before they act. This explains all the trouble they get themselves into.

The picture's timeline jumps extremely fast, and is sometimes tough to grasp how far the next scene is related to its previous scene. Nichols added a couple of split second editing tricks to help show major jumps in time, but I feel they were not consistent enough to be a total help.

One thing I really like about Nichols' choices with the character of Dan, was how he looks himself in the mirror and somehow realizes he's misread a situation. He does it when he realizes Anna slept with Larry again, and at the end, when he realizes Alice is a good-hearted person. Out of every character in the picture, Alice was the only one NOT to cheat on the person she was with at the time. She was young and a stripper, yet she had a better moral structure than the three adult professionals of the story.

Marber's dialogue is way out in left field, and the four leading actors did a great job of roping in his lines and creating a handful of very hard-hitting scenes. However, if you aren't one for randy sex talk, or I should say verbal fights about sex, you may want to skip this picture.

At one point in the film, Larry (Owens) forces Anna (Roberts) to give details of the last time she was with Dan. She finally breaks down, gives him the juicy line of events, which he probably didn't really want to hear, ending with the following exchange…

Anna: We do everything that people who have sex do.
Larry: Do you enjoy s**king him off?
Anna: Yes!
Larry: You like his c**k?
Anna: I love it!
Larry: You like him c**ing in your face?
Anna: Yes!
Larry: What does it taste like?
Anna: It tastes like you but sweeter.
Larry: That's the spirit. Thank you. Thank you for your honesty. Now f**k off and die, you f**ked up slag.

Needless to say, you must be a little desensitized to this kind of dialogue to even begin trying to figure out why it made the final film print.

My problem with the picture overall is the lack of plot. I've seen stageplays turned into movies before, but this one simply lacks the character to keep me fully involved with everyone's personal problems and inner motivations. At times, the film starts to feel like it's dragging, but what kept me involved was trying to figure out where we were in the timeline.

Now, for you guys out there who's girlfriends or wives want to rent this picture, and you're kicking and screaming in protest, be informed that Natalie Portman appears almost entirely naked for a pretty long strip club sequence. So, there you go. There's something in it for everyone I guess.

Overall, I think the picture was just too weird for me to really get into it. I really enjoyed the performances, and I enjoyed watching it, but it's tough for me to recommend it to just anyone. This picture requires advanced viewing, and if you begin looking for a point to this film, you may be looking for a while.

If you see it, and have more insight on it, let me know. I am kind of dumbfounded at this point.

Benn - Where's the Humanity?