Quiet, unassuming Adam is changing in a major way, thanks to his new girlfriend, art student Evelyn. Adam's friends are a little freaked by the transformation.
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Reviews
A Disappointing Continuation
Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.
It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film
Blistering performances.
Neil Labute must be a hell of a nice and convincing guy to get all of those good actors to go along with his movie directorial efforts in The Shape Of Things.Paul Rudd has commented on the fact that by the time it came to making the movie after so many stage performances, everyone was already very tired. I take that statement as a kinder way of saying that Neil Labute is a good playwright, a good stage director, but not the right guy to direct this movie. His later work shows strong evidence that he learned quite well, since then.The problem with The Shape Of Things seems to lie in the fact that Labute forgets that huge essential difference between stage and movie audiences. A stage audience's experience in the theater is as visceral as is the job of the actors onstage. Alone in entering the venue, the stage audience is already aware of its own part in an event that is actually already occurring. There is nothing between the actor and the audience except the shared anticipation of the performance, and that is the reason why hushed noise tends to be the rule, on entering a stage venue--as opposed to the noisier racket that occurs in a cinema.That racket occurs in a venue that is entirely constructed to minimize the the special significance of the event. The admission ticket is cheap and the venue's owners are actively invested in providing cheap and almost poisonous food and drink to be consumed within the cinema venue during the performance. The actors are not present and any disturbance eventually caused them by the audience reaction is filtered through even more distant filters controlled by yet more distant vendors of opinion. In a cinema, one is practically required to indulge oneself in every possible manner that one might even be embarrassed about, when home alone.The point is that there is a difference between Hamlet onstage and Hamlet in the cinema, quite apart from the length of the former, when delivered in full completion. Where most screen versions of Hamlet have to be condensed to qualify for the two hour maximum audience attention span, The Shape Of Things indulges in the cruelty of not sparing the viewer the director ordered pause between the lines exchanged, which may well be appropriate on stage, so that the audience can absorb the process of moving from one point to the next, but is painfully inappropriate on film, where motion moves diction, because there is no limitation on space in which to act.The Shape Of Things is probably an excellent play, delivered on a stage, but it's a tired waste of wonderful actors on film.
'The Shape Of Things' gave me the impression of being an unconventional romantic comedy. It starts that way and pretty much stays that way in the first half hour. But, in a very subtle way, director LaBute, as though peeling the story, gradually reveals its darkness. The movie gets darker and darker by the minute and the ending is unsettling as Evelyn's revelation is exposed like an unexpected punch in the stomach. This also makes one question the 'little sacrifices' they make to satisfy their partners and the extent one is willing to go. LaBute has based the film on his play and it seems to have translated well on screen. With fine cinematography, tight editing, soulful score and solid writing, 'The Shape of Things' is certainly well made but what would it have been without its outstanding performances. Rachel Weisz is marvelous as Evelyn the artist. It can be described as a tour du force performance. Being more specific would risk revealing spoilers. Paul Rudd brilliantly suits the role of Adam (the names Adam and Eve(lyn) are an obvious reference that may define their relationship, depending on the viewer's perspective). Frederick Weller is great as Rudd's caddish friend and Gretchen Mol is very good. 'The Shape of Things' is certainly not your average rom-com. In fact, it isn't a rom com at all.
Until I watched "The Shape of Things" a few hours ago my only exposure to acclaimed modern playwright Neil LaBute were a few clips of Nicholas Cage's apparently horrible performance in LaBute's apparently abysmal remake of the unforgettable British horror classic "The Wicker Man". With my interest in theater, modern theater specifically, growing rapidly with every passing day, it was inevitable that I would sit down and watch a Neil LaBute film, one adapted from one of his own plays for the screen."The Shape of Things" is a further extension of my lucky streak with recent movie picks, as I have either really liked or loved all of my past six film viewings, and this film belongs in the latter group. A comedy so dark I felt guilty for laughing, a film so dramatically compelling and ultimately devastating that I was left literally close to tears by the end of it. It's easy to see how many could really, really hate this movie. It's cruel, misanthropic, bleak, its sense of humor is twisted, and it's really not 'fun' at all.Although I'm sure some will disagree, "The Shape of Things" is one of that rare breed of film I like to call the 'night-ruiner'. LaBute's screenplay, which is probably almost exactly the same as his original play, is a deft, clever, interesting examination of a number of things: friendship, how easily influenced we can be, how we perceive each other, the nature of art, and more, but works ultimately thanks to its emotional impact. A play (or screenplay) of this sort never amounts to anything if the characters aren't compelling and from start to finish these characters most certainly are. Adam is the lead character, played excellently by Paul Rudd in one of the more demanding roles he's taken on, and along with Gretchen Mol's character Jenny he's really the only decent character in the film. Frustratingly naive, but nice enough. All the performances are good enough for the material, and LaBute's direction is very basic but effective enough. I can definitely see how he could fail when taking on a bigger project not adapted from his own work, but I'll wait and see for myself.Sure, nobody's going to call this a masterpiece of subtlety anytime soon, but lots of great drama is in-your-face, and this is rich enough that when a character stands up and speaks to us for several minutes about some of the things the film is about it doesn't feel dumb or unnecessary, but fairly effective and interesting. There's other stuff the screenplay and the film doesn't shove in our face, and the last half hour probably works because it's so upfront about things. It's a very theatrical presentation, and probably works better in that setting, but the film is still a fast-paced, well-written, and fairly enthralling examination of human behavior and how we look at each other.
This is one of the most interesting movies I've ever seen, and I've seen a few over the last 50 years. It is yet another wake up call for Americans, in the spirit of recent documentaries like Fahrenheit 911 and An Inconvenient Truth. This film is an indictment of our prejudices towards the abnormal, especially physical appearance (eg sexism, ageism, racism), and our hypocritical relationship to the truth of our own feelings, particularly in our intimate relationships. Put that together with the corruption, duplicity and violence of our political life highlighted in Fahrenheit 911, and the careless and dangerous disregard of our relationship to the Earth demonstrated in An Inconvenient Truth, and you get a picture of America that is beyond disturbing. Thank you and congratulations to writer/director Neil LaBute and producer/actress Rachel Weisz (her emotional believability and fluidity in this film are chilling). How this film grossed under $1 mil is a mystery to me. Maybe this is not a message we're ready to hear yet. Please see this film.