Spike ,'Same Time, Same Place'
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I had no idea that she dies in the play, and didn't twig to any hints of it in the film either. I may have been to busy watching Natalie Portman walk down the street though.
I thought Clive Owen was fabulous. There was a masculine maturity about him that you don't often see in Hollywood actors.
Masculine maturity--what a perfect description!
I found it totally stagy. Or the dialogue anyway...
What irks me about adaptations tends to be less in the actual dialogue, and more in how it's delivered. Which drives me nuts, because ... these are most likely movie actors -- why they gotta project for a theatre all of a sudden?
Also, the locations were sufficiently intercut that I didn't feel like I was waiting for scenery changes inbetween interactions.
I did not like Julia Roberts' character -- don't know if it was her or the role, but even as I couldn't respect Dan, I could get what drew women to him. Anna? A million times not.
Should I see Closer today? Is it worth it?
I ... enjoy's not the right word, but I'm glad I saw it. I liked it.
I am very much with ita on the Closer response. Enjoy is NOT the correct word, but it is worth seeing.
I also found the adaptation pretty un-stagey in many ways. I mean, the dialogue felt like a play, but it wasn't a Wait Until Dark straight-up stage-to-screen movement, either. There were lots of sets.
I don't think that Alice is guaranteed to have died. In fact, until I found out she died in the play, I didn't even see it as a possibility. Sure, she's walking out into traffic, but it's exactly the same thing she did in the first scene of the movie. The vibe I got was that Alice was basically unchanged by the events of the movie, a catalyst for the changes of the others. Really, her situation is exactly like it was at the beginning of the film: she's hot, she's walking down a street and guys are staring, she's ignoring the world around her enough to put herself into idiotic danger. She ran to a new city to get away from a guy she once loved and no longer loved. For her, everything was exactly the same. That's all the last scene drove into my head. That, and, "Yes, we the filmmakers are aware that Natalie Portman is incredibly fucking hot."
I did not like Julia Roberts' character -- don't know if it was her or the role, but even as I couldn't respect Dan, I could get what drew women to him. Anna? A million times not.
Yeah, I didn't have any sense of an inner life in her that attracted these men to her. And she and Jude had no chemistry, so their hookup baffled me a little.
Nova, the guys weren't staring at her in the beginning of the movie -- just Dan.
I thought that was kind of the point - that she was cold and flat and yet the men were still attracted to her because of surface. (Admittedly this might have been better carried off had Julia been her 15 year-younger self rather than the current haggard version...). The actress I saw in that role on stage played it so reminiscent of 4th Season Cordelia that I was almost pushed out of the moment.
See, if we're talking surface -- NATALIE PORTMAN SURFACE. If you're talking only surface, then, sure Anna wins. But -- ick.