Barbie, the movie, is a sparkling spectacle of absurd hilarity and visual rapture. Each film frame is packed with exquisite detail and attention to set craftsmanship, costume design, choreography, gestures and diction. The first part of the film is delightful - saturated with laugh out loud jokes, over-the-top musical numbers, rich narrative, amusing cameos, and inspired film references. The second part of the film is more serious - with Barbie facing issues of personal identity, depression, self-love, and sexual harassment on her journey from colorful utopian matriarchy into the scary world of oppressive patriarchy. But before the audience begins to feel pressure from all the female issues, Gerwig skillfully recalibrates mid-film drama with the ultimate power move of Ken stepping into the real world. Suddenly, Ken is seen, heard, respected, and brimming with hope for a future where he can make a difference. Gerwig's decision to showcase the complexities of Ken's existential journey (along with that of other Kens) gives us a glimpse into what women experience in the real world. Yet, the film never makes any definitive statement. The story flows without imposing any rigid agenda, but leaves no one indifferent to its musical and comedic sequences. Gosling outright swipes the spotlight from the entire cast with his unforgettable "I'm Just Ken" number. His "Kenergy" is unbeatable! He was destined to be Ken, just as Robbie was destined to embody Barbie. The rest of the cast also flawlessly portrays countless versions of Barbie and Ken dolls. Simu Liu and Kingsley Ben-Adir embraced the silliness of the film and had me in stitches on the Kens' side. DP Rodrigo Prieto's cinematography is remarkable - he seamlessly differentiates the two worlds using the "face-front" angle in Barbieland, avoiding shaky moves. It's like he's saying, "Smooth sailing in doll land!" while the real world gets dynamic camera work of "Hold on tight, things are getting real!" In sum, the film is a visual feast! I can see the awards for production, costumes, makeup, best actor and best director. Gerwig continues to be one of the most interesting filmmakers working today. As always, she tackles heavy topics unapologetically, but this time she does it while making us laugh. "Barbie" is an amusing ride you don't want to miss! I recommend seeing it in a packed theater.

The Tree of Life – a film review

"There are two ways through life - the way of nature, or the way of grace. You have to choose which one you will follow."

For those, who enjoy slow moving films that set the mood through imagery and camera work, The Tree of Life might turn out to be a new favorite.  This film is all about mood, which highly correlates with individual temperament at each moment of viewing.

The Tree of life does not pride itself on a twisted plot.  On the contrary, the plot is rather secondary, if at all existent. This film spans life from the beginning (the Big Bang vs. childbirth) and continues onward from childhood filled with questions through the ongoing struggle of a man to embrace the conflict between nature and grace.

Malick presents its viewers with two ways: the way of the father and one of the mother. Like nature, the first one is full of force and combustion, while the second is loveliness herself. 

Between the scenes of Asteroid slamming into the earth and rapids of water rushing over the screen, trees gently sway to the escalating sound of classical music. Complimented by the agile musical score, Malick’s powerful imagery evokes nature’s ability to calm and confuse humanity. At the peak of confusion on screen, the film reverts back to life, which is filled with good people who suddenly go from happiness to suffering.

By following one family’s misfortune, Malick raises issues of internal conflict between faith and nature, suggesting that it predates humanity. To demonstrate this struggle, he shifts away from humans on screen to what seems to be the Triassic Period, where a curious dinosaur moves in for the kill of its weaker species only to become suddely overcome with a primeval kindness.

Switching again to family life, Malick shows the world through the innocent eyes of a child named Jack and torpedoes forward to him as a disheartened adult, who attempts to resolve the complications of his family relations. Struggling in his search for answers in the midsts of modern architecture, Jack as a man seeks solace in amazing visions of nature and vivid memories from childhood. Through wonderful imagery, Malick questions the meaning of existence and faith with constant contrast between the foreceful beauty of life and gentle poetry of spiritual grace.  

Like life itself, The Tree of Life is a transcendent journey, which seemingly leads nowhere, and ends at the place where all roads meet. It all finally comes together and starts to make sense in the film's final sequence, where viewers’ concentration of thought and emotion is released in the afterlife.

Brad Pitt’s performance as Mr. O'Brien is remarkable, as he embodies a hot tempered father struggling to keep his job, while his childhood  dream of becoming a musician still hunts him at the moments of weakness. In contrast to his dark and excitable character, Jessica Chastain’s portrayal of the ethereal Mrs. O'Brien is luminously angelic. 

Best of all is young McCracken as he plays confused and defiant Jack.  Sean Penn is inconspicuous as the older Jack, meandering around beautiful shots of Houston as though he just woke from a coma.

Malick’s new film is not for everyone. Some people will walk out of this film, others will enjoy its slow moving pace. Above all, this cinematographic expression requires patience and is as personal as individual tastes go.


Though beautiful, thought provoking and poetic, in my opinion, this film deserves 4 out of 5 stars for its trying length. Its running time (2 hours and 18 minutes) could use a 20 minutes cut.

Midnight in Paris - a film review

This romantic comedy is set in Paris and involves a young Hollywood screenwriter Gil (Owen Wilson), who is engaged to be married to a spoiled American princess (Rachel McAdams). Gil is somewhat lost on his already successful career path and wants to quit Hollywood to become a struggling writer in Paris. Seeking answers during a midnight walk through the city, Gil is picked up by a car and whisked away to a party, when some random encounters with famous people from the past change his life forever.  

Lighthearted, endearing and entertaining in the way all Woody Allen films are, Midnight in Paris jumps back in time to the Paris of Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and numerous other writers and artists of that time. Gil quickly finds himself living a nightly dream of his most favorite artistic period. The dream gets even more exciting with an introduction of a beautiful female writer named Adriana (Marion Cotillard). While Gil contemplates being stuck back in time to be with Adriana, she ironically reveals her desire to live in the time that predates her own due to inherent dissatisfaction with her present surroundings.

The film is both a homage to Paris, as well as a metaphor for the illusion some people have about changing their life’s circumstances. Like an artful postcard from Paris, Woody Allen sends this charming film to remind his fans that being disenchanted with the present is ridiculously futile.

I give this film 4 out 5 stars.

Super 8 – a film review

Like an old home made movie made by geeky kids, which adults scraped off the shelf and revamped by adding the newest special effects, Super 8 is a patchwork of stories that seem somewhat incoherent.  Nonetheless, this film is a very entertaining and thrilling experience that best compares to riding an old rickety rollercoaster.

Directed by J.J. Abrams and expertly produced by Steven Spielberg, this summer science fiction tale is set in the small American town circa 1979.  Engaging to all ages, but especially to the teens, this summer attraction involves average American families and appeals to the majority of movie going audience.

The plot is simple - average middle school kids get into trouble by doing what kids do best – making a zombie movie.  Unfortunately, while filming one of the sequences, kids end up being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They witness a mysterious train wreck, which they should not have seen and engage in the fearless quest to uncover the cause of the incident.  In the mean time they continue to make their zombie movie and eventually get involved with a life threatening alien, whose presence in the small town throws it into turmoil.

Next follow series of somewhat disjointed zombie makeup mesh ups, various shoot outs, explosions, auto chases, and finally alien destruction. The film is a typical Spielberg and is best compared to any of his films from decades ago. Despite this familiarly frivolous Spielberg sci-fi nature, Super 8 portrays teenage antics with admirable candor, which stirs up nostalgia of being a kid.

Don’t miss the end credits, which contain the final version of the zombie film kids managed to put together despite the many obstacles in their way.

I give it 4 out 5 stars.

Black Swan

I've seen a lot of films last year, but having to chose only one, I pick Black Swan as the best film for 2010.
Here is why:

Darren Aronofski’s Black Swan is an excellent film.  It explores an intriguing subject matter of madness in a way that is both wildly disturbing and alluringly sexy.   The film is as much of an artistic study of a female subject as it is a picture of the borderline obsessive struggle each young actor, artist, and performer must overcome before becoming a true star.

The film begins with a portrayal of young Nina,

The Tourist - a film review

With an amazing cast of Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, Paul Bettany, Timothy Dalton, and Steven Berkoff, under direction of the talented director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, the Tourist promises to be a hit.  Set in Paris and Venice, to the forgotten Hitchcockian theme, it starts off looking like an old Hollywood film.

Stealing Beauty, a film review

Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci based on a novel by Susan Minot.

This delicate and intimate drama orbits around the coming of age story. Shortly after her mother's suicide, 19 year old virgin Lucy (Liv Tyler) arrives in Italy to visit her belated mother’s friends in hopes of loosing her virginity and discovering the secret identity of her father. An artist (Donal McCann), his wife (Sinead Cusack), and their friend Alex (Jeremy Irons) help Lucy trace her roots and look for suitable candidates to aid her in her quest, while feeding on her innocence and candid beauty.

Love and other Drugs - film review

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Jamie Randall in "Love and Other Drugs".  Jamie is a pharmaceutical salesman who sells sex and Zoloft  with equal zeal.  A natural charmer, he is determined to take the pharmaceutical industry by storm and becomes increasing successful with the addition of Viagra to his drug rep portfolio. 

The lesser of two evils - two films take a stab at Wall Street

A sequel is always harder to make than the original, especially when it comes 23 years after Oliver Stone's Oscar winner Wall Street (1987).  Wall Street – Money Never Sleeps (2010) is a second story of a young man seduced and betrayed by Gordon Gekko, which unfortunately lacks ambition and drive of the first film. The story begins dramatically with an investment bank collapse, after which the script slowly sinks into the mire of a morality tale. An idealistic next generation Gordon Gekko plans to marry the old man’s estranged daughter, while the old man retains his snakelike ability to shed old skin.  Despite Michael Douglas’ talent and Charlie Sheen’s cameo appearance, the performances are unconvincing, while events unfold too slowly to capture the fury of the 2008 financial crisis.

Charles Ferguson’s  Inside Job, on the other hand, chronicles the evolution of corruption and fraud on Wall Street with ease. Though spanning over decades, the film paints a clean picture of events, using a star studded cast of real financial officers and regulators. Most of the characters are amusing, but especially entertaining is Frederic Mishkin, who fails to explain his resignation from the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors to “revise a textbook” one month before the crash.  The documentary goes on to clarify the inexplicable concepts of deregulation, the housing bubble, mark to market accounting, and derivatives. As a result, the relationship between big banks and regulatory agencies is explained in detail that makes sense to ordinary people.

Out of the two films about Wall Street, the Inside Job gets more bang for its buck.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest - two thumbs down

In its written form, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest jumps from point to point as a thrilling narrative. Larsson manages to blend the leaps between the villains and the central characters of the novel with his usual page-turning grace. Unfortunately, director Daniel Alfredson and screenwriter Jonas Frykberg failed to convey this story on screen in an equally exciting way.

By eliminating major subplots and diluting the courtroom experience, they robbed the ending chapter of the trilogy of its exhilarating suspense.

Despite the film being not being engrossing, the character of punk-hacker Lisbeth Salander remains fascinating.  Noomi Rapace has personified this heroine with accuracy, which makes it difficult to imagine her in any other onscreen role.

I give this film 2 out 5 stars.  I recommend reading the book over watching this film. 

Salt - a film review

Directed by Phillip Noyce, Phillip Noyce, with the skilled cinematography of Robert Elswit, "Salt" is an excellent spy thriller with some great Russians villains.

The plot is not worth the mention because it is gloriously ridiculous, yet it is wound tight enough to keep the suspense ticking continuously with the clock for 100 minutes. The movie has many chase scenes, shoot outs and explosions. Somehow, Salt comes unscathed out of most of them, but her immunity does not seem to bother the audience because she looks great doing it. Not only does she look incredible with blond and black hair, she also makes jumping out of cars, sliding down elevator shafts and single handedly saving the world from nuclear annihilation seem like a walk in the park.



Jolie plays a CIA spy, who is accused about being a Russian spy. Whether or not she is a Russian or American spy does not really matter, but the supporting actors Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor keep you guessing as to the real motives of her character until the end. Jolie plays Salt with conviction and brutal energy of a female superhero, who looks beautiful despite sometimes getting bloody, wet or dirty.


My favorite scene involved Salt making a rocket launcher out of office furniture and cleaning supplies. My least favorite scene involved Salt dressing up as a man in order to get into the White House.


Despite the suspended disbelief of everything that happens in the film, Salt is a smart and very entertaining thriller.

Eat, Pray, Love – a feel good chick flick

Directed by Ryan Murphy and starring Julia Roberts, Billy Drudup, James Franco and Javier Bardem, Eat Pray Love is an accurate film adaptation of the memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert of the same title.

An international bestseller, the book conveyed Gilbert’s personal and slightly self indulgent journey through crisis and self discovery towards an emotional balance.  The story begins with Gilbert, a successful writer and wife, being wholly unhappy in her marriage to a nice and loving husband.  After a painful separation, followed by a gruesome divorce and a short lived romantic relationship with an actor, Gilbert decides to spend a year traveling Italy, India and Indonesia. This journey is funded by an advance to write the book about her experience, which is the story of Eat, Pray, Love.  

The film is based solely on Gilbert’s yearlong journey, at the end of which she finds everything she ever wanted. It’s a fairy tale with a happy ending, except this fairy tale is real and actually happened to Gilbert, who has since been nicked “the lucky girl.”

 The largely female audience waited for this film with enthusiasm, hungry for an emotionally rewarding entertainment that has a ring of truth, no matter how far fetched.  The film is rightfully branded a chick flick, for it touches the hearts and nerves of women, wishing for a fairytale ending after enduring loss of love, loss of self and loss of balance. 

And the film delivers just that – a delightful voyage to splendid places, filled with succulent meals, spirited messages, romantic scenes and a happy ending.  It is a solid piece of Hollywood amusement that is charming and enjoyable throughout.

Julia Roberts devoted herself wholeheartedly to portraying Gilbert on film, making it one of her best performances.  The film's supporting cast is equally excellent, with  Javier Bardem adding icing to the cake of already pleasing scenery.

Although not as inspirational or heartfelt as the original Gilbert prose, Eat, Pray, Love the movie provides women with renewed hope and confidence the way a Disney cartoon fuels idealistic dreams of little girls. 

"Generation Zero" - a film review

On August 15, 2010, St. Petersburg TV program “Oil Painting” discussed a Russian documentary directed by Peter Solovyov, Поколение нулевых (“Generation Zero”).

This film is a critical portrayal of young men and women, born between the years 1983 and 2000, for whom the Internet has become home. The film explores a theory proposition that the external influence of the Internet plays a damaging role on young people’s personality, turning them into infantile zombies.

This film raised many comments between different generations. Researchers proclaimed that representatives of the “computer” generation are different from their parents in the way their brain works. Young people defended their position and gave examples of various motivated young Russian industry leaders. The elders in the community criticized the youngsters for being listlessness and blamed the Internet as the source of laziness and idleness of the new generation, predicting that it will impede future progress of Russia.

In my opinion, this film does not shed light on any of the problems of the eternal conflict between parents and children.  Many young Russians are existentialists with a humorous outlook on life, who use a healthy dose of skepticism in order to self preserve. This, however, is not atypical of other generations that came before them.

Each previous generation has always criticized the one that came before it. There always were lazy people with poor work ethic and there were people who were more motivated and harder working. The difference between this generation and their parents is that now we are able to openly discuss these issues on the Internet. This is something that was impossible twenty years ago.

In Russia, where truth was suppressed for many years, the phenomenon of widespread information is especially visible. In modern Russia everything is permeated with corruption and lies, leaving few options to the young people. Many ambitious youngsters move ahead regardless of the cost, while majority spend hours in virtual reality of the Internet.

The real difference between generations of today lies in the modern technology, which enables young people to live, work and play in a dimension that was not available to their parents. With the rise of the Internet and its availability to virtually everyone, the possibility of doing everything from home has revolutionized the way young Russians act.

Problems may occur with the introduction of any new technology, but progress and change are impossible without innovative approaches to living and doing business.

A Single Man - a film review

Although Tom Ford's A Single Man could easily pass for a stellar Gucci commercial, the designer's first film is nothing short of a superb cinematographic debut.

 

Based on Christopher Isherwood’s short 1964 novel, A Single Man presents the universal subjects of love and loss with a great deal of sensuality, romance and compassion. Ford turns the simple narrative of one day in the life of George Falconer, a British middle-aged literature professor into a glamorous and deeply emotional portrayal. 

Set in 1962 Los Angeles, the film is shot from an intimate point of view of George Falconer, with camera following his gaze, slowly shifting from the glossy looks of George’s lost younger partner, Jim, to George’s own  impeccable dark suits, followed by detailed shots of black eye liners, big hair and high-cheek bones of women, and cigarette smoke populating George’s world.

 

A Single Man follows George on his last day, as he plans to take his own life, methodically laying out his funeral papers, stylish suit, new shirt, tie, cufflinks, shoes and notes to friends left behind after his death. However, when it comes to shooting himself, George is hesitant because he cannot fathom splattering his office or bed with blood. What happens next is a rather humorous melodramatic chase around inevitable death, which eventually catches up with George when he least expects it.

Colin Firth’s performance as professor George Falconer is outstanding.  He managed to convey the complexity of George’s personality as an aloof Brit who is faultlessly tasteful and reserved, and therefore, is unable to openly grieve the loss of his gay lover in a 1960s environment of contemptuous Los Angeles, where he can only be himself with his old friend from London, Charley.

Ford certainly contributes to this film as a gay director, paying homage to the male form and the panache of 1960s as his camera glides over tanned male bodies and impeccably dressed men and women. Despite the highly stylized details, nothing in the film distracts from the sympathy for George as a man suppressing his grief while being unable to hold back his thirst for life, beauty and love.  

Ford conveys George’s emotions through camera fading in and out of color as George regresses between present and memory. His late partner is always depicted in warm welcoming hues, while George himself often fades to black and white, into existence deprived of color, resembling an old Polaroid shot from the 1960s. Every time someone interrupts the tedium of George’s reality, the world on screen turns back to color. Also noteworthy is the ticking clock metaphor, which accompanies George throughout the film while he broods on the past life with Jim.

 

This film is intricate, delicate, and real.  I give it 5 out of 5 stars.

Inception - the lucid world of dreams

I saw "Inception" last night and was not disappointed. 

This film offers an abundance of symbolic and psychological references regarding reality as we know it. We've all experienced dreams that made us ponder on the meaning behind the images we saw. Usually there is some sort of a logical explanation for what we dream about, but sometimes, trying to explain what happened inside our dreams to others is almost impossible.

In Inception, Christopher Nolan takes on this impossible task and makes a brilliant attempt of revealing this secret nature of our dreams. This film captures the lucid world of dreams perfectly. It is not just a world of dreams, but it’s a specific world of each person’s dream, designed around individual subconscious state, where only one particular individual can change the nature and architecture within his dream until the rest of us become uncomfortable. In our own dreams, we usually never die, but in a dream of another person, death is very plausible and will not always lead to waking up. 

The most interesting aspect of Inception is that most of the film takes place in a dream within a dream, in a world so far removed that even the individual dreaming it cannot control what’s happening and has to find his way inside the labyrinthine of his subconscious mind. 

Though action packed, Inception is also filled with symbolic images and psychological "projections", representative of the inner demons, which can only be exorcised within the conscious world of a dream. The film questions reality and begs the audience to compare it to the world of their dreams. If you had a choice, where would you rather be, living in reality or in a dream?

Inception is filmed as a long dream sequence, with no beginning and no end. Full of explosive energy and hidden references, it ends leaving the audience feeling as though we just woke up from a deep and very vivid dream. We don’t really remember how the film began and it’s hard to recall all the details after going four levels deep into someone else’s subconscious world. 

Like most dreams do, Inception leaves a lot of questions unanswered. It has an ambiguous and reflective quality that keeps us guessing and pondering on the meaning of what we just saw. All we are left with are fragmented memories, which we must put together in a sequence that makes logical sense.

Yet, unlike a dream which is fleeting and can only been seen once, Inception is a film that demands multiple viewing in order to grasp every layer of its maze. I plan on seeing it again.

"I Am Love"-- Film Review

Luca Guadagnino's "I Am Love", produced by and starring Tilda Swinton, starts off elegantly, with black and white images and dramatic symphonic panache.   The film is a modern day melodrama, composed around the Recchi family – an Italian clan whose wealth was built on the family textile business in Milan.  


The film begins with a family gathering, during which the Recchi patriarch passes down the family business to his son Tancredi (Pippo Delbono) and grandson Edoardo (Flavio Parenti). 


Tancredi's Russian wife, Emma (Tilda Swinton) is initially portrayed as a secondary character - reserved, somewhat removed, she is an obedient wife who acts in accordance with the cannons dictated by the Recchi clan.  Swinton is splendid with her Russian- Italian accent that sounds almost effortless.

The film’s deliberate slow pace continues to disguise the significance of Emma's character as the centre of the story until somewhere mid film.  Although she is married to a powerful man, has beautiful children and lives in a gorgeous Italian villa, surrounded by servants, Emma is clearly catatonic in her job as the house wife. 

Through a series of events and encounters that awaken her senses and memories, Emma gradually transforms back into the young Russian girl, who remained submerged after leaving Russia to become Tancredi’s wife.  As events continue to unfold, Emma reemerges as Kitish in an attempt to flee the patriarchal world of the Recchis and keeps rising until she breaks free in a dramatic finale.  

The camera work of "I Am Love" tells the story through carefully chosen images that make Milan look like Moscow.  The film score carefully matches the setting and progression of the character development.  Composed by acclaimed minimalist musician John Adams, the  orchestral score compliments each scene with a mix of dramatic and somber tones, that accurately reflect Emma’s suppressed nature. As the film progresses, the music advances to an almost operatic climax, while dialogue becomes less and less important.  As a result, the film sounds like an opera and looks like a classical European drama.

"I Am Love" is a bold film, which Guadagnino and Swinton meticulously sculpt by using fluid cinematography, implicit glances and secret gestures.  No detail goes untouched, no gesture overlooked, no sound left unnoticed while symbolism, light and music convey the story of transformation, liberation and becoming one with love.  


A lot of furtive messages are hidden in this film and are best explained by Tilda Swinton herself in this interview.

Verdict: the film is an alluring feast of senses and I’d recommend it to anyone who cares about watching true cinema and does not mind sitting in the theater for two hours. 

Closer - film review

Closer is one of my all time favorite films because it demonstrates the ease with which people play with human emotions.  This film is based on a play by Patrick Marber, starring Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Jude Law and Clive Owen. 


The plot is not as complicated, as it is twisted and has been compared to Così fan tutte, Mozart's opera which is both referenced in the film and appears on its soundtrack. 


Unlike the opera, nothing is forgiven and forgotten in Closer. Rather, love is a nasty game for mature audiences.
Dan (Jude Law) is an obituaries writer, who falls in love with Alice (Natalie Portman), a young American by the name of Jane.  The film begins with Alice walking down the street, locking eyes with Dan and getting hit by a car. She survives the accident and quickly moves in with Dan, who proceeds to write a book about her.  A year or two later, Anna (Julia Roberts) takes a photo of Dan for his book about Alice. Dan accidentally introduces Anna to Larry (Clive Owen). Eventually Dan and Anna have an affair, Alice leaves Dan and becomes a stripper, Larry has one steamy night with Alice, but eventually wins Anna back, after which he tells  Dan where to find Alice (but not without telling him that he and Alice slept together).


Closer is a raw take on relationships.  It is disturbing because it goes where most films do not dare - it explores real life love drama at its core, where people are angry, dishonest, brutal, despicable, vengeful,  hurt and humanly flawed. 

All four performances are commendable, but the talent lies with Clive Owen and Natalie Portman. Owen is raw and powerful, while Portman is conniving and pure at the same time. 

Robert's Anna is more calm than deceiving, although she certainly knows that “Lying is the most fun a girl can do without taking her clothes off.”  

Both female characters are equally strong as they are weak. Their art of deception using tea is worth a mention:

“How about some tea?” – offers Anna to her husband in an effort to hide her relationship with Dan. 

“Make some tea”, says Alice to distract Dan before she runs away.

Unfortunately, Anna is not strong enough to keep her affair a secret during an interrogation by Larry:

            Larry:   Is he good?

            Anna:   Yes

Larry:   Better than me?

Anna:   Different

Larry:   Better?

Anna:   Gentler

Alice is equally pitiful in seeking reassurance from Dan after his betrayal with Anna:

Alice:    Do you still fancy me?

Dan:     Yes.

Alice:    Why? Why is love not enough?

  

Dan is also weak, giving Larry the upper hand and total control over Anna:

Larry:   I did not fuck her to give her a nice time, I fucked her to fuck you up.

            You do not know the first thing about love. Have you ever seen a human hart? It looks like a fist wrapped in blood. You writer, you liar. It’s over, accept it.

Larry:   She has made her choice … She does not want to be happy …Depressives don’t want to be happy because they have to go out into the world and live, which is depressing.

Dan:     You love her like the dog who loves its owner.

Larry:   And the owner loves the dog back.

Larry further bullies his way by ruining any possibility of Dan's relationship withAlice:

            Larry:   Dan, I lied to you – I did fuck her. Sorry for telling you, I am just not big enough to forgive you.

Frustrated, Dan takes his defeat out on Alice, who is especially interesting because her use of fake name suggests she is just playing a game to detach herself from men.  Of course, underneath it all she is suffering from betrayal and loss, which is post poignant in the scene that takes place towards the end of the film:  


Alice and Dan are in a hotel room, attempting to relive happy memories  they lost along the way.  Alice is excited about their upcoming vacation, but Dan is not mentally there.  Instead of thinking about the future, he is tormented by the past and Larry's brutal words keep ringing inside his head.  


Dan begins to question Alice about her one night with Larry. Dan's obsession prevents him from noticing that the last chance of happiness with Alice slipping away:  

            Dan:     Tell me what happened?

            Alice:    Nothing happened.

            Dan:     I just want the truth. I am addicted to it. Without it we are animals.

When Alice does not give in, Dan runs away, only to come back a minute later and change his mind. But it’s too late. Alice has had enough:

Alice:    I don’t love you anymore. Goodbye. So here is the truth so that you can hate me. Larry fucked me all night.

Dan:     I knew that. He told me. I needed to hear it from you.

Alice:    Why did he tell you? Because he is a bastard. I would have loved you forever. It’s too late now.

Dan:     I love you!

Alice:    Where? Where is that love? I cannot see it, I can’t touch it, I cannot feel it. Whatever you say it’s just words. It’s done. Go.

And so it goes - we are left with the final scene, in which Jane(Alice) is walking down the street in Manhattan.  She is young and beautiful, her every step bounces with freedom, and every male passersby stops to look at her, as Damien Rice sings:

"And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time"

Then the screen shifts to poor Dan - he is broken and will never get over Alice or Anna. 

And the song continues:

"And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky"

Not many know that Jane gets killed by a car in the original play. In the film, she is walking towards a red "do not walk" light, oblivious to everything.  She is careless in her beauty and she is walking directly into her death (or maybe not, the film ending is left open to interpretation.) 

Closer ends exactly where it begins - at a cross walk - a perfect metaphor for human relationships, in which everything is replaceable, trivial, and can be taken away in one split second.