A shallow, frivilous bore, and in the end you ask: "who cares?"

Awful, actually.

I went into the movie with fairly positive expectations. I walked out of the theater proclaiming that this was one of the three worst movies I have seen in my lifetime. I would agree with some of the other reviews that the acting was solid. However, the overall spirit of this movie is completely soul-crushing. This wretched film drains energy for two solid hours, as the viewer is subjected to utterly distant people painstakingly draining each other's lives. This film feels like a two hour, knock-down drag out argument out with a loved one--ala the wretched "A Story of Us". I would recommend this movie to only those with the most cynical view of love and relationships. Someone reeling from a bitter recent breakup, for instance, might find comfort in watching the emotional torture of others. Everyone else would be advised to stay away or at least saw off a non-dominant limb for a lesser form of abuse.… Expand

It's been a long time since I've left a movie before it ended. Who talks like that? Obviously Hollywood believes that as long as they saturate a film with beautiful people and big names, the audience will respond. This film was total crap. Infidelity may not be new, but the way these people deal with it is completely unrealistic. What man goes to hug his wife after she tells him all the explicit details of her extra marital affair. Who says, "Did you get dressed because you thought I was going to hit you"? To which J. Roberts responds "I've been hit before." What crap dialogue, and the acting was totally boring. The stripper girl got on my last nerve. The scenes in the strip club just got to be too much for me to take any longer. After watching this guy yell in the strip club about wanting love and truth, I just couldn't take it any longer. It's been a long time since I've seen anything so bad. The next time I see a film with nothing but big name stars, I know it's going to be horrible (case in point, "The Mexican"). Jude Law is everywhere. He will soon be another Ben Affleck, and J. Roberts has enough money. Surely, she can afford to turn down crap films like this one.… Expand

Nearly pornographic! disgusting!

I hate when people say that if you didn't like this film you are a prude, conservative or have never analysed self deeply. this film is for the people who have only touched the surface. there are people like these characters in the world but i only have met a few and they have been some of the worst and most uninteresting humans i have known and i can't say anything better for these characters or the people who sympathise with them.… Expand

A wretched, wretched look at the worst of humanity that manages to be equal parts joylessness and superficiality, interspersed with a most banal and unconvincing exploration of sexual obsession. The actors are consistently betrayed by the material. It's not bad in the traditioanl sense of being poorly written, but it is wretched: a story about four people you couldn't stand to be around for five minutes without slapping them silly or running in the other direction. But boringly, predictably, they all have the same pathetic, unconvincing, basically psychopathic approach to love and sex. Human imperfection is a wonderful theme for film and can be entertaining, endearing, or movingly tragic when done well. It is none of those things here. This film is rubbish because the writer's work is rubbish, high-brow rubbish to be sure, but still worthy of nothing better than immediate relegation to the garbage dump. I hated every minute of this film. Not even worth seeing for the fine performances. Dissatisfying on virtually every level. No. No. No.… Expand

Hollywood never looks at their arts effect on younger people like the did when movies were truly wonderful. This story is so dark, so heavy on sexual themes, that a good, dark drama had to be sunk to a Porn flick. My wife and I along with another couple got our money back.

Can't say I've been more turned off by the actions of four adults in my life. Sexual perversion radiates in this movie with language to make a sailor blush. Julia Roberts was simply awful in her character portrayal. What these people found so interesting in each other is beyond me. Defintiely NOT a date movie. Avoid.

Many there really are people who are cynical enough - or stupid enough - to find merit in a movie about four such self-destructive imbeciles. The artsy types (such as many so-called movie critics) love to embrace the "honesty" of psychologic pathology. This moive has no shortage of that. Fact is, only people who derive some form of perverse joy in watching idiotic people engage in idiotic dialogue for idiotic reasons might find merit in this movie. The rest of us would do better to spend the money at McDonalds.… Expand

An appaling film which all four stars should be embarrassed to put their name to. With no depth and a shocking script, the characters were instantly dislikeable and there was nothing to keep me interested. Unrealistic, filthy and quite honestly a waste of money.

Waste of time and money!

It is true that life is cruel and that love most of the times is just a word. But, what a terrible way to express it, they lost the chance to express the real world. I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!!

This movie was a train wreck. All 4 characters spend the whole movie engaging in duplicitous infidelities, while simultaneously shrieking that they must know the "truth" of each others' affairs, because the truth is all that matters. Huh? While some of the acting was good (Owens and Portman), Roberts and Law were barely passable. The characters were so despicable, I can't understand why anyone would care about them. My greatest regret is that I didn't drive myself, so I could have left early.… Expand

Very Boring, the film kept jumping forward a couple of months to a year. You could easily miss 20 minutes of the film and come back into it. Not really a point to the film, good for a snooze.

Overrated and somewhat boring! The caracters are pathetic!!!!

Pseudointellectual writing and great performances. Dialogue is mediocre and contrived. Not grounded in reality.

"Closer" is a very well-acted, well-directed and well-edited piece of junk. Unlikeable characters I can take; an unlikeable film is something else.

As viewers we look out for a little drama combined with other movie' elements. The movie revolves around four people who apparently don't even love themselves and their emotional treats are not fully developed ( not a love storie).

What a piece of crap. One of the few movies I've walked out of in the theater.

I can't remember a movie I so disliked. Not only have I never met anyone as vacuous as the characters in this movie, I hope I never do. I found absolutely nothing entertaining or engaging about this film.

Cold as ice lowing through the characters veins as well as boring to watch. One of the most overrated movies of the year. Avoid.

But the movie doesn't say anything. It doesn't explain anything. Life has depth. This movie, though having a somewhat attempted guise of artistic value, does not, and I certainly don't believe that guise is enough to glaze over the completely vapid plot. It's not the first time Hollywood threw out a pessimistic and negative portrayal, so it's hardly new on that front. It seems the higher ratings were so inundated by "edgy, realistic, negative drama" that they forgot to actually watch the movie.… Expand

This move will very likely appeal to snobby movie critics and people who wants to get as far from mainstream movies as possible, but in the opinion of a regular person, it rates very low in entertinment value, it jumps ahead way to much, so you never feel a part of the experience, and the story never really goes anywhere. Plus none of the action happens on screen, they just talk about later! Boring. Pretentious. Unrealistic. The only reason it gets a 3 from me is because Clive Owen does a good acting job.… Expand

Nothing is more pathetic than cinema and amateur critics who rave over a movie's "honesty" just because the characters portrayed within it are psychological and spiritually corrupt. Sad commentary. Unless you're 1000% cynical (or terminally stupid) avoid this movie at all costs.

This movie was horrible --- who wants to pay money to see this crap. No redeeming qualities at all. It's very jaded and bleak.

Plays like a film version of the old Calvin Klein Obsession commercials. Just a lot of empty declaiming to no purpose whatsoever, which may indicate a failure to adapt what might have played well (or, at any rate, somewhat better) on stage. The characters, with one exception, are absolutely vile -- and not (I hope) remotely true to life. Particularly strange was all the going on about loving one another when nothing remotely loving was evident. This was a particularly dreadful example of a film trying desperately to seem cutting edge and mature while ending up laughable and absurd. Natalie Portman's lap dance monologue (a wonderful gift to an actor) was beautifully done, however.… Expand

Easily one of the worst movies i have ever seen! This was like watching a car wreck or watching an infant dying-and just as sad. Good actors (with the exception of the talentless Clive Owen) tell a dreadful story here with no redeeming qualities. I felt dirty afterwards.

A tedious slog with four emotionally crippled people, it shows the depths to which they descend without itself ever having any depth. I wanted those two hours of my life back.

Everyone looks great, but the ponderous pacing, humorles dialogue, and earnest acting sink it.

Huge disappointment! With such good actors I was expecting something enjoyable but this definitly was not it! It was weird and just not worth while!

I can't give this film zero, because I couldn't make it to the end. Still I can't see it redeeming itself by more than one point over the remaining 40 minutes. The opening titles are promising because of the choice of Damien Rice for the soundtrack (ok he's a bit populist, but if you don't like him a little bit, you don't like music). After that it's utterly pointless. This film utterly lacks humanity. Worse, the superstar performers are unable to whisk up even the tiniest bit of chemistry between their pampered selves. Why do we persist on paying these prima donnas.… Expand

Great to look at. Nothing more. Critics loved it because it's provocative and controversial. Washington Post got it right. Highbrow s..t.

I have a profound loathing of this film. Real people do not talk like this. It asks hard questions like "Why do rich, beautiful, vain, self centered, urbanites treat love as a commodity and sex as a form of power politics". The film looks great as do the actors but it is presented as an authentic look at modern relationships, but this is as divorced from reality as any fantasy. The characters are emotional children, real people do not act or talk like the people in this film, it is a rich coffee table intellectuals view of humanity. This is a world view that has not been informed by genuine hardship. It is an A Level students view of modern love. I like a bleak film as much as anyone, the bleaker and more pessimistic the better, but this film lacked a key ingredient: RELEVANCE. This film explores the sexual politics of a metro-sexual elite, it is not a genuine universal exploration of love and the damage it does.… Expand

Mildly entertaining but unltimately empty and lacking in so many areas. Cannot remember another film where ALL of the main characters are so unsmpathetic and unlike able. At the end of the day I didn't care what happend to any of them, just hope I never meet people like them in my personal life.

This movie tries to do a lot. It tries to be thought provoking, it tries to be raw, it tries to be deep and it tries to be brutally honest. It was not truly any of things. The dialogue was forced and contrived, attempts to be profound merely come off as beautiful, spoilt people displaying their idiotic and warped notions of life, formularized to the last drop. The film is so horribly self conscious it made me grimace to watch it, it was as though the only thought given to the film was that raw automatically equals artistic quality. I hate to say it, but it does not. A soulless and sterile movie that is void of any depth, despite far too obvious attempts to the contrary. It is the Da Vinci Code of films; garbage that is made to appeal to the pseudo intellectuals.… Expand

Cloying, affected and tiresomely self-important. Performances are lacklustre, from the insufferably dull Clive Owen to the overemployed Julia Roberts and the altogether useless Natalie Portman. Even the usually impressive Jude Law doesn't do this a lot of favours. Not that it's an easy task to be asked to spew out such trite, pretentious dialogue at the behest of a pretentious director.

Ouch. It hurts so bad that this is a completely depressing movie and it hurts even more that Julia Roberts was cast as Anna. She completely fails as Anna and seems completely detached and unemotional during any of the "lovers quarrels" in the movie. Natalie Portman and Clive Owen are especially good and Jude Law okay in their roles. However, none of the characters are worthy of attention, empathy or any feelings, other than possibly Portman's character, who is the least guilty of anything. All in all, there is no great plot, no great statement made by this movie. Don't take a date to it, it would only lead to trouble. The characters are simply horrible people (again, with exception of Alice/Jane who remains somewhat of a mystery) and not worth watching. The only redeeming quality of the movie is the way in which it talks about sex, completely bluntly, never fearing to use words like "cunt" or even "perenium" and illustrates the farce of the "online" sex world. So, if you want to see how lewd a movie can be, and feel like wasting some money, go see it. Otherwise, avoid this. … Expand

Early the twists and interplay of the characters were interesting, but the twists became just plot points, until a great ending--that is it was great that the movie had ended. Think of the various couplings, break-ups, and re-couplings in the 10 years of "Friends" condensed into two hours, add swearing, subtract humor...you got "Closer." Some nice scenes though.

I just can't believe the rating that was given for this movie. Usually I agree with metacritic....but this was literally one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It is utterly boring all the way through and leaves you wondering when something is going to happen. When something does actually come around and happen, its the same as what just happened 10 minutes before in the movie. I am spellbounded by the other reviews on this movie. It was just plain terrible....terrible.… Expand

Terrible movie....I dont understand why the reviews are so bad. Has no real plot, just a bunch of people cheating on their boyfriends and girlfriends. The artistic value of the movie in no way makes up for how boring it is.

People learn about sex from the movies and Closer is sex ed from hell. I say this as a nationally recognized sex therapist. It comes close to being an exposé of male sexual obsessions and insecurities but turns out to be endorsing them. Men really do have to prove how virile they are, the test being to outdo other men at satisfying women who are so unpredictable and untrustworthy that even after four anniversaries a woman may not reveal her real name. These are women who have no need for romance and who passively go with whomever meets their erotic needs. Sex is not for sissies. The writer has no idea what sex is about or what really goes on in heterosexual relationships. No one has commented on the subtext, that straight men are gay underneath. Both women are essentially irrelevant, only vessels through with the men bond and compete, beginning with Jude Law… Collapse

A drab dreary film in need of a spark for the four talented actors to work with. One hour and forty minutes of my life that i wont get back.