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In the age of ever-increasing crassness on screen (see the Farrelly brothers' comedies), there are some filmmakers who can make serious commentary instead of just throwaway gags. Neil LaBute's second feature is a corkscrew comedy of savage, bitter people who can't find happiness in many a thing, let alone sex. The film is not as tight or commanding as his first feature, the black-hearted
In the Company of Men, but he gives six nameless characters six juicy parts with plenty to talk about. The emotional punch is devastating for those trying to find love and happiness on celluloid. One wife and husband (Amy Brenneman,
Men's Aaron Eckhart) are nice people, living in a dream home, who can't connect sexually. Drama teacher Ben Stiller and live-in girlfriend Catherine Keener may just work out if, well, he didn't talk all the time. Stiller confesses his love for best friend Eckhart's wife; Keener starts an affair with artist assistant Nastassja Kinski. Then there's Jason Patric (who also produced) as a calculating, misogynistic doctor who has not had a peer on film or theater since David Mamet's
Sexual Perversity in Chicago (which took a different film form as
About Last Night...). Manipulative and forward, he's the white-hot core to LaBute's fire and has the monologue of the year to boot. LaBute's callous films aren't for everybody, but there is an art and clear-headedness to his work that most American independent filmmakers can't create on screen. Note: the six characters speak the only lines in the film, although through careful editing it never seems this way.
--Doug Thomas
From The New Yorker
Another dirty comedy of bad manners from director Neil LaBute. The contemptuous heroes of his last picture, "In the Company of Men," were venal enough, but, compared to the inhabitants of the new movie, they seem about as noxious as the Hardy Boys. This time we are introduced to two couples: Mary (Amy Brenneman) lives with Barry (Aaron Eckhart), while Terri (Catherine Keener) lives with Jerry (Ben Stiller). Jerry starts an affair with Mary (what does she see in him?), Terri falls for a gallery assistant called Cheri (Nastassja Kinski), and Barry, the only sensible one, continues to have sex with himself. It's hard to care about the damage these people do to each other, since most of it will strike the audience as richly deserved. LaBute's attempt to follow in the footsteps of Restoration comedy is undercut by the fact that his dialogue is only fitfully funny, and you can't help but feel soured by the flat, ritualistic look of the action. The one enlivening performance comes, surprisingly, from Jason Patric; he plays a good-looking monster named Cary, and he has the nerve to suggest that, in a glum world, he's actually having fun. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006
The New Yorker
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