(rated R) Directed by Mike Nichols, it’s ironic that the movie is called “Closer” yet the characters keep pushing each other away. In London, where cars drive on the wrong side of the road and tourists often get hit, the story appropriately opens with a stripper named Alice (Natalie Portman) gazing at Dan (Jude Law) across the street, when she gets struck by a car. Dan, by the way, writes obituaries for the paper. But Alice doesn’t die. Instead, the two fall in love until Anna (Julia Roberts) a photographer comes into his life. What isn’t dictated in this movie is time passage that sometimes weaves through a full year or only three months of these characters lives. Instead we are introduced to it through moments like when Anna has since married Larry (Clive Owen) not through a crutch of sub-titles, but through smart dialog, without a word of excess. Law’s character is smooth and believable with a touch of sympathetic – his best cad to date. Robert’s is pure illuminating and engaging – always in control. Portman is fantastic. This is her movie and her moment to shine while Owens shows more exposure emotionally, than any of Portman’s stripping or Robert’s lens work. The movie is tasteful yet abrasive, delivering a kind of verbal intercourse that fulfills yet disturbs.