Closer

Herald rating * *

Superstar power - Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts and Clive Owen - in the hands of a superstar director, Mike Nichols, playing his favourite hand, the war between the sexes that he dealt with in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Carnal Knowledge.

It's about two couples who will couple with the other two, the fallout and the falling-out.

Dan (Law), a frustrated novelist who writes obituaries for a London newspaper, has an accidental meeting with Alice (Portman), an American stripper who's fled to London to escape a bad relationship.

Some time later, Dan is about to publish his first novel, and Anna (Roberts) is taking the cover photos. Living with Alice, Dan is attracted to Anna, but she backs off.

Enter Larry (Owen), a successful dermatologist - and so begins the four-way collision of modern and post-modern relationships.

Apart from some sharp and literate dialogue by Patrick Marber, who adapted his stage play for the screen, this is a one-dimensional photo of four unlikeable people, and four actors who might have been better off resting.

The only special feature on the DVD is the music video for Damien Rice's The Blower's Daughter.

* Closer is on DVD, video now