I watch Closer, and rather enjoy it. Despite the explicit dialogue, it’s otherwise entirely old-fashioned. Consisting mainly of couples shouting clever but cruel things at each other, it has much in common with the 60s Burton & Taylor film Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, not least the same director. Although there’s many generously detailed references to sexual acts, there is no nudity, and no sex scenes. The film is about people talking in the hope of sex, people discussing the sex afterwards, and the taking down of clothes to be used in evidence against them. But the only on-screen congress is undertaken via an Internet chat room, and even that’s part of a practical joke on the part of the bored (and fully clothed) Mr Law, pretending online to be female for the unwitting Mr Owen.

The dialogue may be peppered with Grade A swearing, but otherwise the characters speak in theatrical, well-honed sentences that could have come from any British 20th century playwright pre-Pinter. Mr Owen says things like “Oh, the moronic beauty of youth” about little Ms Portman, before promptly requesting her to bend over. It’s George Bernard Shaw does gynaecology.

Though the film is an ensemble piece, Mr Owen steals it effortlessly from the others. I understand he is the only actor to have been in the original stage production, and it really shows. He first appears in the aforementioned Net chat room scene, when the camera pans from his PC screen to his charismatic fingers typing on the keyboard. Before we even see his face, we know instantly the film is all his. A safe pair of hands indeed.

I’ve not seen the stage play myself, but I have read the book. There’s a particularly memorable line I was waiting for when watching the movie, only to find it’s been cut. This occurs in the strip club scene, as said by Ms Portman’s character (who appears to have stolen Ms Johannsen’s pink bob wig from Lost In Translation). In the original play, she declares “all men really want is a girl who looks like a boy.” Not so in the movie. Perhaps it was omitted because this argument-starting statement is not really discussed or developed, just thrown out as if to make people sit up in the theatre. Perhaps the writer changed his mind. It makes sense, though, as Ms Portman is not a girl who looks like a boy. She is a girl who looks very much like a little girl. In a bedtime scene with Mr Law, she jumps on the mattress as if she were his pet kitten. And very apt too, as the movie is really about possession and the battles for power in the relationships it depicts. Mr Owen’s marriage is even likened to a dog and its owner by Mr Law. Some pets give the orders to their owners.

The analogy has been touched upon before in The Good Father, an excellent 80s British film about middle class CND-supporting people being unkind to each other. Its principals are Anthony Hopkins and Jim Broadbent, and though a young Stephen Fry has about two lines in it, it’s a very serious film. To gain custody of their children, the men use the “old boys’ network” against their estranged wives. In their own uneasy phrase – challenging their liberal views – they have to “jerk their leads a bit”.

Both films are engrossing and intelligent looks at anger and emotional damage in relationships. Though perhaps not recommended for watching on a first date.