by SARAH ROWLAND

In every extramarital flirtation there’s a pivotal moment where you can either retreat and resist or succumb to your lust and risk waking up with an horrendous hangover of guilt. Mike Nichols’ brilliant new drama explores that point of no return through unsympathetic characters who all ring true on some level.

Successful photographer Anna (Julia Roberts) loves a good “guilty fuck” because she doesn’t think she deserves happiness. She’s screwing around with an obituary editor Dan (Jude Law), who is turned on by pursuing forbidden fruit because he’s bored with anything real. Anna’s husband, Larry (Clive Owen), gets off on nasty anonymous sex because he likes to punish himself with regret. Dan’s jilted girlfriend, Alice (Natalie Portman), enjoys toying with the idea of a “revenge fuck” as a way to ease her pain.

All four stars take full advantage of Patrick Marber’s scathingly honest script with unprecedented performances. Roberts dims her 1,000-watt big-screen persona here in her most adult role to date. In the scene where Anna confesses to her affair, she says she’s disgusted with herself and it actually shows on her larger-than-life face. And it’s not everyday that you hear the Academy Award-winning actress scream out with conviction, “His cum tastes just like yours, only sweeter.”

Portman’s whimsical depiction of the “completely lovable” and “unleavable” pink-haired peeler is probably the least demanding. Still, she manages to be cutting when she nonchallantly throws out, “I’ve been waiting for someone to fuck me sideways with a line like that.” But it’s the men who really shine here with their glib deliveries. Owen rages as a pathetic and volatile man who perpetually puts himself in situations where he must grovel. And Law possesses the frumpy slouch of a man dissatisfied with his lot in life; more often than not, you forget that you’re watching Britain’s Brad Pitt.

Scary, dark and true, this is Nichols’ most enthralling film in years. No matter where you are in your own relationship, you can relate to these people because, as Alice says to Dan when she’s getting tossed aside like a used cum towel, “I’ve been you.”

Closer opens Friday, Dec. 3

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