Closer
Closer
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/20/04
re: Closer#2
Posted: 1/8/08 at 10:57pm
SPOILER REQUEST BELOW:
I heard that the ending of the Broadway version, the published text of the play, and the movie are all different. Could someone describe the differences?
re: Closer#2
Posted: 1/8/08 at 11:05pm
II haven't seen the Broadway version but I've read the play. The ending is VERY different from the movie.
I didn't like it, it's just too messed up for me. Maybe it's different if you see the play, but... eesh.
-- spoiler --
In the play, Alice dies at the end. Dan ends up alone, and Larry and Anna don't end up together (he ends up dating a nurse, I think?) Another difference is that Alice is implied to have some psychological disorder that makes her injure herself (IIRC).
re: Closer#3
Posted: 1/8/08 at 11:07pm
Loved the film with a passion, particularly Natalie Portman.
Wish I had seen the great Anna Friel as Alice. She must have been thrilling.
re: Closer#4
Posted: 1/8/08 at 11:12pm
The film was better than the play's script, IMO.
Both Natalie and Clive were fantastic.
re: Closer#5
Posted: 1/9/08 at 1:41am
How did Alice die in the play?
That would've been overkill in the movie, so glad they changed it.
I would sell my soul a bazillion times over if I could go back in time to have seen the London production with Clive.
re: Closer#6
Posted: 1/9/08 at 1:51am
Wow I must live under a rock I had no idea it was even a play! Loved the movie though - strong performances by all. Especially Clive.
I'm glad though that Alice's character didn't have some disorder linked to self-mutilation in the movie. That would have been too much I feel and taken away (not amplified) the drama between her and Daniel.
re: Closer#7
Posted: 1/9/08 at 1:56am
Clive Owen must have made a great Dan in the West End production but I can't imagine anyone else playing Larry in the film version. His scene when Julia Roberts tells him she is leaving to be with Dan is perfection.
Natalie Portman gave the best performance of her career so far in that film.
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/20/04
re: Closer#8
Posted: 1/9/08 at 6:56am
At the end of the play, well, the script that's currently licensed by DPS, we learn that Alice (real name Jane) was hit by a car and killed in New York. Alice was a name she stole from someone's gravestone. Dan was her only contact, and it ends with him going to NY.
But that's a revised ending, apparently. How did the movie and the staged play end?
Stand-by Joined: 5/21/03
re: Closer#9
Posted: 1/9/08 at 7:20amIt has been a while since I saw the play on broadway, but if I remember correctly in the play she was killed, hit by a car. The scene with the two men on the computer was memorable, with each man on opposite sides of the stage and two big screens above them so the audience could see what they were typing. Also, I enjoyed Natasha Richardson very much in the role. And I also remember that after each scene, the scenery would pile up in the back of the stage, so by the end of the play there was just a big pile of all this scenery. Sorry I don't remember more.
re: Closer#10
Posted: 1/9/08 at 11:19am
This was on Broadway in 1999 - I don't remember a whole lot about the production, except that I thought the acting was uniformly excellent but the play itself didn't make much of an impression. I do recall thinking Natasha Richardson and Anna Friel were excellent as Anna and Alice. Rubert Graves was Dan and Ciaran Hinds was Larry. I also remember the internet chat scene between Dan and Larry to be hilarious and one of the few things I can still remember nine years later.
Car crash sounds vaguely familiar, but I don't really remember specifically.
When I first saw the film I recall thinking it was better written than the stage play (by that time I had completely forgotten the story) but wasn't particularly enamored of it. (I have an irrational distaste for any film with Julia Roberts, so that kind of ruined it for me.) But I'd agree that Clive and Natalie were excellent.
re: Closer#11
Posted: 1/9/08 at 11:53amI did see the play which I remember liking and Friel was wonderful but I see so much stuff I can't remember what happened.
re: Closer#12
Posted: 1/9/08 at 12:05pmYankeefan007: In the movie, she just goes back to New York and it ends with her walking amongst the crowd.
re: Closer#13
Posted: 1/9/08 at 12:07pmI remember seeing this on Broadway and being blown away by it. As noted above, the internet chat scene was extremely well done. That was a moment of theater that I will never forget. Genious, really. Plus, the entire cast was wonderful at the stage door.
Broadway Star Joined: 1/23/06
re: Closer#14
Posted: 1/9/08 at 3:22pm
Spoiler...
If you watch the end of the film when Portman crosses the street, the do not walk sign appears. Knowing the play, when I watched the movie I thought she must have been hit by a car, because it happens in the play. Also the play goes more into depth about her scars and I always thought it was powerful how Larry being a Dr. was turned on by them.
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/20/04
re: Closer#16
Posted: 1/9/08 at 8:38pm
Yes, there is an intermission in the play.
I didn't much like the movie either (I'm convinced the director Mike Nicols didn't fully understand the play).
The original London production at the National Theatre was very good. It's the kind of play that really requires a sharp pacing and sharp line delivery; where that's lacking (at times in the film, for example), it can feel thin. And doing it in an intimate space, such as at the Cottesloe at the National, helps too. That all existed and worked really well in the original production--of course, having manly men a la Clive Owen and Ciarán Hinds(aka 'Satan') in the cast helped too! 
How it holds up in the grand scheme of world theatre, I don't know, but it's involving and interesting when well produced/performed.
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