Closer (2004)

  I hated this movie.  I think it showcased the absolute worst in people.  If that was its intention, then great, but I don't know why you would make it.  If it wasn't, then this is a terrible movie.

It starts with a meet-cute between Dan (Jude Law), an obituary writer and spoiled man-child who is so obsessed with not missing out that he can't see what's under his own nose, and Alice (Natalie Portman), a stripper newly moved to London.  They have a relationship and Dan writes a book.  We know this because the characters tell us so, not because we see them.  The movie decides that we don't actually need to see anything about these people interacting beyond the first day they met and instead jumps us a year into the future.  Dan is having his photograph taken for his book jacket by Anna (Julia Roberts), to whom he feels attracted.  Anna, a previously abused weak-willed woman, rebuffs his advances because she knows about his girlfriend.  Dan, upset that he can't have Anna, pretends to be her in a sex chatroom with Larry (Clive Owen), a verbally abusive borderline sadistic dermatologist, arranging for them to meet where he knows Anna will be.  Anna and Larry hit it off and get married but she just can't seem to quit seeing Dan.  There are further jumps about a year apart, as best as I can tell, but honestly, I was so bored by these characters and their inane self-inflicted bullshit that it was hard to pay attention.

These are four caricatures of people.  They have no real depth and the emotional intelligence of box turtles.  The two males are slightly worse off since no effort is made to even make them likable, leaving the audience to wonder how exactly they landed such beautiful but damaged women.  Alice in particular seems just this shy of perfect, but that could also be because she is almost never on screen unless it's to show Dan's callous disregard or Larry's aggressiveness.

Also, for a movie about sex, it shows an astonishing lack of it.  You don't see any of the couples actually in bed together.  They talk about it constantly, sometimes with amazing crudity, but you see nothing.  Now that I think about it, that sums up the movie entirely:  all talk, no action.