Closer

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.

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

Closer, a lacerating four-character suite on the elusiveness of love and intimacy, finds Nichols returning to his roots without having lost his sardonic edge.

Vibrates with eroticism, bruising laughs and dynamite performances from four attractive actors doing decidedly unattractive things.

Closer has lots to offer: smart performances, archly funny dialogue and a feeling for the way a group of strangers can become so familiar that they're apt to rip one another to shreds.

If it makes you uncomfortable, or leaves you disturbed, it has only done its job.

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.

Searing story of betrayal isn't for kids.

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.

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

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

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.