**Menage a Quatre** You may like _Closer_ because of its flawed characters and their doomed relationships. I like it because it's square. The assorted combinations of love and friendship, scorn and resentment, among two males and two females are literally geometrical. Typically, the dependable love triangle pits three characters together, often a heterosexual convention establishing a male lead zig-zagging between two females, or a female lead choosing between two male suitors. What if we include an extra character? How many triangles can be made with four individuals? Four! And _Closer_ expertly covers them all. Next time you see it, draw out a square with each character occupying a corner. Then connect each of the couplings and triangles as they occur, beginning with Julia-Jude-Natalie. Jude falls for Natalie, introduces her to Julia who gets intimate with her camera. The Jude-Clive-Julia triangle is a clever one. Clive is introduced when Jude seduces him online pretending to be Julia who he meets at the aquarium. Often when a movie script or stage play adheres to a strict formula, it turns out flat and predictable. Not _Closer_. Applying a quadrangular network forces each character to cover all the bases, tagging up every way possible, pushing each juncture to the limit.
Writer "Dan" (Jude Law) likes to spend his evenings, when not with his American girlfriend "Alice" (Natalie Portman), teasing other blokes on sex-chat sites. One night he sets up doctor "Larry" (Clive Owen) with a promise to meet at the aquarium with "Anna". The horned up physician duly turns up, only to discover that meantime "Dan" has vengefully despatched the real "Anna" (Julia Roberts) - his part time lover/photographer, to unknowingly meet him instead. Embarrassed looks, sighs and "Larry" feels like a prat but, maybe the outwardly rather aloof "Anna" is interested? What now ensues is all a bit entertainingly far-fetched as an unwitting ménage-à-quatre emerges, becoming increasingly more intimate, then loving, then manipulatively toxic. Are any of these people destined to find happiness with any of the others. Quite frankly, do they deserve it and do we care? I've always found Owen as wooden as a washboard, but here - especially sharing the screen with an on-form Portman, he actually seems to be able to act (a little). His character, I found, comfortably the most odious of the four. Portman is the star of the show, though. Her portrayal of the needy sex kitten vacillates from provocative to desperate with a compelling ease. There's frequently some vitriol in the writing and the juggled storylines well paced as this story of unlikeable people moves along quickly. I think this might work well on stage, it has a characterful intensity to it, but on screen it's well worth a watch - even if it's all a pretty grim appraisal of human behaviour.
"_What's so great about the truth? Try lying for a change, it's the currency of the world._" Unpleasant people: The movie! I couldn't believe I hadn't seen this yet and now that I have I have 2 thoughts. First thought is that these 4 really did acted their parts well in this and second... I felt nothing for them by the end.
A sister and brother face the realities of familial responsibility as they begin to care for their ailing father.
In southern France, a Franco-Arabic shipyard worker along with his partner's daughter pursues his dream of opening a restaurant.
Insurance executive Charles suspects his wife Hélène of playing the field, so he has a private detective locate his wife's lover, author Victor Pegala.
Still grieving after the murder of her boyfriend, hairdresser Justice writes poetry to deal with the pain of her loss. Unable to get to Oakland to attend a convention because of her broken-down car, Justice gets a lift with her friend, Iesha, and Iesha's postal worker boyfriend, Chicago. Along for the ride is Chicago's co-worker, Lucky, to whom Justice grows close after some initial problems. But is she ready to open her heart again?
After his mother's death, 17-year-old Sven moves in with his dad Achim, a taxi driver, who had divorced his mother several years earlier. It is not easy for Achim to get used to an adolescent around the house, especially since Sven hardly speaks to him. But Sven does well in school, and Achim hopes that time will bring them closer together. It is Achim's girlfriend Julia who first senses that something is wrong with Sven. Why, she wonders, does he always hang around with young boys? Why does not he have any friends his own age? She suspects that he is gay. The truth, however, is somewhat more nuanced - and chilling: Sven has pedophile tendencies. Proof is soon found on videos that shock and sicken Achim. Sven himself is shattered and regrets his actions. Julia suggests therapy, but Achim is convinced that he and Sven can handle this together. But he is wrong. Though Sven practically begs his father to lock him up in his room, Achim has confidence in his son.
When Will decides to tell his daughter the story of how he met her mother, he discovers that a second look at the past might also give him a second chance at the future.
When Vetter's wife is killed in a botched hit organized by Diablo, he seeks revenge against those responsible. But in the process, Vetter and Hicks have to fight their way up the chain to get to Diablo but it's easier said than done when all Vetter can focus on is revenge.
Two couple of friends, one very rich, the other almost homeless, decide to go on Holiday. Julie, a single mother, joins them too. Once at seaside, it starts a complicate love cross among them that will involve also a transsexual, a jealous brother, a Latin Lover and another nervous stressed couple. Not to mention about the daughter of one of them that is secretly in Chicago with one of her father's employees... At the end of the summer, all of them will join the same party...
Ballet performance by The Royal Ballet, recorded at Covent Garden, London, United Kingdom, July 1984.
Terry is a small-time car dealer trying to leave his shady past behind and start a family. Martine is a beautiful model from Terry's old neighbourhood who knows that Terry is no angel. When Martine proposes a foolproof plan to rob a bank, Terry recognises the danger but realises this may be the opportunity of a lifetime.
A tale of a philosophical womanizer who is forced to question his seemingly carefree existence.