Read

Closer (2004), directed by the late Mike Nichols, starring Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, and Clive Owen, and based on the play of the same name by Patrick Marber, not only tells the interlocking story of four conflicted individuals and their web of lies, sex and betrayal, but also raises questions about the very nature of identity and whether or not we are still animals, deep below the surface.

Set in London, Dan (Law), an unsuccessful British author and obituary writer, meets Alice (Portman), an American tourist who is working as a stripper, after she is struck by a taxicab during rush hour. Over the course of one year, the two develop a loving, but deeply troubled relationship. While promoting his yet to be published novel, which he based on the life of Alice, Dan becomes very interested in his American photographer, Anna (Roberts). Frustrated by her initial lack of interest, Dan plays a cruel practical joke on Larry (Owen), a British dermatologist who he meets on the Internet while pretending to be someone else. Coincidentally, this random act brings Anna into Larry’s life.

The concept of animals, particularly fish, is a constant throughout the film. Marine life is foreshadowed earlier when Dan asks Anna if she could come up with a better title for his novel than the one he has given it. She then suggests “The Aquarium.” It is later, at an aquarium, where Anna and Larry meet for the first time. There, Larry confesses his admiration for fish, and states “We were fish, long ago, before we were apes.” Also, as Dan is waiting outside Larry’s office to confront him about the fact that Anna has chosen Larry instead of himself, a fish tank is cleverly positioned right behind the distraught Dan.

Besides the affairs the assorted characters have with each other, their lies are not limited to their secret rendezvous. During a night of drunken debauchery, Larry runs into Alice at her current place of business. As she gives him a lap dance, Larry asks Alice her name. When she replies, “Jane,” he assumes it is just her stripper name. Alice then comments, “Lying is the most fun a girl can have with her cloths on.” After Dan and Alice briefly reconcile their relationship issues, Dan requests the truth as to whether or not she slept with Larry. When Alice asks why does he insist on the truth, Dan replies, “Because without it we’re animals.”

At the film’s conclusion, Alice returns to the United States and Dan returns to the very place where Alice told him her name. We then learn that Alice’s real name was in fact Jane, as she had insisted to Larry, and that she had been lying to Dan throughout their entire relationship. This begs the audience to ask, how do we really know our significant other and how far have we actually come since we emerged from the water all those years ago?