Closer is depressing in every respect. Nobody gets closer to love, to beauty, to understanding. Not the writer of the script (Patrick Marber), not the director (Mike Nichols), not the viewer (you and me). Watching the film, I felt real anxiety about getting old. Almost 40 years ago Mike Nichols directed Who is Afraid of Virginia Wolf, a wonderful movie based on a play in the same name. Both movies focus on psychological warfare that can break out in relationships. But Closer has lost all sense of psychological believability, drowned out by what I now fear to be the tragic desires of old age. As a young man, Nichols had clear before his eyes that a highnoon shootout in a relationship is all the clashing of personalities, life plans, accomplishments and backgrounds. Skip Closer and get closer in Who is Afraid of Virginia Wolf.