December 3, 2004 | "How did you like it?" If you're a film critic, you're often asked this question, or some variation, before you can get out of the theater lobby after the first press screening. Sometimes, the person seeking the info is an anxious publicist who's trolling for rave-review blurbs. More frequently, it's a causal acquaintance you see only at screenings, or a total stranger who recognizes you before you can make a clean getaway. In any event, you're expected to offer an immediate response - preferably something witty, or at the very least pithy - without dithering or equivocating. Heaven forbid that you ramble, or wax philosophical, while you thoughtfully weigh pros and cons, shadings and nuances. So you rattle off a snap judgment: A quick quip, a facile wisecrack, a clever (you hope) turn of phrase. A cheery thumbs-up, or a grumpy thumbs-down. And truth to tell, that's all many movies, even some very entertaining movies, really deserve.

But Closer isn't one of those movies.

For openers, it really isn't a movie you like in the traditional sense. Or any other sense, I think. (Trust me: Anyone who says he or she likes it shouldn't be entirely trusted.) And yet, days after seeing it, I can't get Closer out of my mind. Some scenes are so shocking in their savagely profane, emotionally unhinged intensity that they're profoundly discomforting to watch. And yet, just as you can't help listening to the couple arguing at the table next to yours in a restaurant, or the lovers quarreling behind you in line while you wait for your valet-parked car, you can't turn away from the screen. At least, I couldn't turn away. Not even when - only sporadically, I can assure you, but more often than I would care to admit -- I felt the none-too-pleasant buzz brought about by a shock of recognition.

Based on the acclaimed play by Patrick Marber, who adapted his own script for the screen, and directed with ice-cold clockwork precision by Mike Nichols, Closer is a movie about what people will do and what they will stoop to, what they will say and what they'll instantly regret saying, when they think they're in love. (Nichols covered similar territory, memorably, back in 1971's Carnal Knowledge. Specifically, it's about four people in London who maneuver through a minefield of passion and betrayal, connection and disruption, over a period of roughly two years. Bits and pieces are scabrously funny. But whenever you start to laugh, the laughter always catches in your throat. Especially if you can remember ever saying something similar.

Dan (Jude Law), an under-achieving writer, is attracted to Anna (Julia Roberts), an American-born photographer, while she snaps his picture for the dust jacket of his first novel. (He's proud of the book but, wisely, he doesn't quit his day job as a newspaper obituary writer.) Unfortunately, he's already involved with - living with, actually - Alice (Natalie Portman), another transplanted American, a waitress who used to work (and, eventually, works again) as a stripper. So Anna, although obvious intrigued, rebuffs Dan's advance.

In a fit of mean-spirited mischief, Dan identifies himself as Anna in an Internet sex-chat room, where he arouses the interest (among other things) of Larry (Clive Owen), a dermatologist with too much time on his hands. Dan directs Larry toward a meeting with the real Anna, who's understandably discombobulated when a total stranger approaches her in a public aquarium with indecent proposals. And yet, remarkably, Larry winds up charming Anna. And then he winds up marrying her. But then Dan makes a return appearance. Complications arise as alliances shift. And shift again.

The performances are terrific across the board - a good thing, because they have to be for Closer to work its dark, seductive magic. (Only those predisposed to hating Julia Roberts will argue that she is anything but dead solid perfect here.) The characters are complex, contradictory and constantly surprising, evolving from scene to scene as they gradually reveal different aspects of their psychological make-up. Indeed, in almost every scene, there is a revelation that forces us to rethink everything we've already seen about one character or another, that makes us drastically reconsider our assumptions and sympathies.

Occasionally, something is planted - at once stealthily and transparently - only so it can sprout something toxic later on. Note the way Larry off-handedly slips a poison pill into information he gives to an initially grateful Dan. In the heat of the moment, you may not fully realize what a maliciously vengeful thing Larry has done when he says what he does. But not so long afterwards, Larry's remark, like a time-release capsule, has its desired effect. Dan is transformed, as is Alice. And what's most disturbing about the metamorphoses is, even after the damage is done, you still don't know for certain: Was Larry lying? Or telling the truth? And which, in the final analysis, would be worse?

There is almost too much here to fully process during a single viewing of Closer. As I said: It isn't a movie you like. But I would very much like to see it again.