Closer

The problem of adapting a stage play to the screen is that people talk too much. Also, how do you turn a conversation piece into something that involves going outside?

"You are a creep."

"You've ruined my life."

"You'll get over it."

Such repartee flows like vinegar. Real life, or reel life?

"I'm taken."

"You kissed me."

"What are you? Twelve?"

Is this tittle once the tattle has been sucked dry, or part of a new courtship ritual?

Closer was a fashionable success in London's West End and on Broadway for writer Patrick Marber. It can be described as a modern drama of sexual mores (bonkathon with classy dialogue) for four actors.

The film peels away the artifice that stage work operates within its tradition of technical trickery. Sentiments are raw, language uncompromised and performances a joy to watch.

The characters are well defined: Dan (Jude Law), obituary writer for national newspaper, failed novelist; Anna (Julia Roberts), portrait photographer, no children, no pets; Alice (Natalie Portman), ex-stripper, free spirit, young and "disarming"; Larry (Clive Owen), dermatologist with private practise, consciously ex-working-class.

Dan and Alice get together. Anna photographs Dan for a book jacket. He makes a pass at her. She meets Larry, thanks to one of Dan's jokes that goes wrong, and marries him. Later, she falls in love with Dan and Alice disappears.

It goes on in this vein over a period of many years, the couples interchanging, as relationships evolve. In the end, rather than the sex, the betrayals, the tears and the passion, what comes through is something infinitely precious.

"You don't know what you've got till it's gone" has slipped into the national psyche without touching the walls. What does it mean exactly? Marber probes undercurrents with delicate cynicism.

If Closer had been made by Neil LaBute (In The Company Of Men), feelings would have been bruised. As it is, director Mike Nichols appears mindful of sensibilities, while taking a tough line on 21st century romance.

Marber's script is admirably grown up, the emotions contrary and fraught. A question remains, hanging like the body of a shot albatross. While attempting to cleanse deceit, does truth kill the thing it loves?