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MovieMail's Review
Patrick Marber's screen adaptation of his prize-winning play is a strikingly modern and adult examination of relationships, deception and love. Mike Nicol's direction of the text is skilful yet unobtrusive, allowing the play's sharply defined characters to come to the screen unharmed.
Constructed of scenes from the beginnings and endings of the romantic affairs between the four main characters, the plot may sound labyrinthine but it's put together with impressive clarity. Jude Law plays Dan, a self-obsessed, arrogant obituary writer who is already involved in a relationship when he meets Alice (Natalie Portman), a young, American ex-stripper. They meet by chance - as they playfully eye each other up she is distracted and knocked down by a taxi. A year later they're living together, but then Dan meets Anna (Julia Roberts), an American photographer. They're also attracted to each other but nothing happens until after Anna gets involved with Clive Owen's character, Larry.
All the actors acquit themselves brilliantly, but none more so than Clive Owen. While Dan has a writer's romance in his selfish soul, Larry is base (“Have you ever seen a human heart? It looks like a fist covered in blood…”). He's obsessed with the truth behind people's facades and in his forthright, practical way he reveals it. Watching the two war over Anna presents a clinically clear view of their characters and makes for fascinating viewing.
With the quality and truth of the writing it's likely you'll recognise a number of comparable situations from your own life, with many lines of dialogue ringing uncomfortably true. Because of this, the film packs an impressive emotional punch. Its cold exterior could be defined as cynicism, but it reveals without illusions the sometimes cruel nature of our relationships.
Drama about four strangers (Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen), their chance meetings, instant attractions and brutal betrayals. This bitter and frequently brilliant study of relationships has a topnotch cast (Clive Owen is particularly impressive) and a blistering screenplay from former Steve Coogan collaborator Patrick Marber, based on his own stage-play. The scene between Owen and Natalie Portman in the strip-club is modern drama at its most electrifying.
