director/screenwriter
Neil LaBute
based on
his play
producers
Neil LaBute
Gail Mutrux
Philip Steuer
Rachel Weisz
cinematographer
James L. Carter
music
Elvis Costello
editor
Joel Plotch
cast
Gretchen Mol (Jenny)
Paul Rudd (Adam)
Rachel Weisz (Evelyn)
Fred Weller (Phillip)
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 96m
u.s.
release: 5/9/03
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
other neil
labute films
reviewed on this website:
- in
the company of men
- nurse betty
- possession
- the wicker man (2006)
- your friends & neighbors
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I Love You, Now Change is, I believe, the title of one self-help
book or another (and if not, it should be). It describes the
phenomenon of narcissists who find that almost perfect
someone, then suggest alterations to fix him or her more to their
liking, always under the pretense of trying to help. Perhaps
they believe it themselves. In The Shape of Things, the
close-cutting new film by Neil LaBute (In
the Company of Men, Nurse
Betty), a schlumpy grad student named Adam (Paul Rudd)
meets an alluring art major named Evelyn (Rachel Weisz). They
fall in love, mainly off-camera, and every time we see Adam he
gets less schlumpy. His friends Phillip (Fred Weller) and Jenny
(Gretchen Mol), far from being happy about his self-improvement,
get worried. As well they should, because Phillip and Jenny are
about to be married, and Adam's situation makes them think about
things they'd rather not deal with.
Check the names: Adam and Eve(lyn).
LaBute is fond of meaningful names, and we pick up a scent of
unease: Is Evelyn offering Adam the forbidden fruit of self-knowledge?
Was he happier before Evelyn came into his life and nudged him
out of his rut? He loses weight, loses his frumpy clothing, finally
loses his old nose in favor of a streamlined new one. I'm not
sure how well this worked on the stage, where the material originated,
but in the film we can see Adam transforming from a tweedy Sam
Gamgee type to the generically handsome Paul Rudd (whose all-American
looks LaBute used to subversive effect in "A Gaggle of Saints,"
one of his pieces in Bash: Latter-Day Plays). Phillip,
perhaps sensing the loss of the familiar dynamic between himself
and Adam, is threatened; Jenny, newly attracted to Adam, reaches
out to him.
Rachel Weisz is well on her
way to becoming another Helena Bonham Carter (whom she resembles).
She's shown an affinity for quirky indie fare as well as the
knockabout fun in the Mummy series,
and her passion for the material here -- to the extent of co-producing
the film -- overrides whatever qualms we have about Evelyn. We
feel her presence when she's not around; the other characters
are always discussing Evelyn and her impact on Adam. Evelyn is
also dedicated to her version of truth, which in LaBute territory
means blurting out secrets with a flat affect and at the worst
time. We don't quite know how to read her, so we take her as
perhaps a necessary grain of sand in the oyster, with Adam as
the emerging pearl. After all, she's really only shaking things
up that maybe needed shaking up.
Things get shaken, all right.
The last act, which I won't reveal, carries echoes of In the
Company of Men and the Bash plays, in which we're
lured into accepting a character's motives only to have the rug
pulled out from under us. Using only one character, a microphone,
and two photos, LaBute gives us a sequence of scathing emotional
violence that outdoes anything I've seen this year. Is it plausible?
Not really, but LaBute dotes on theatrical flourishes. Things
are literally unveiled here, including a pair of middle fingers
extended to the audience (yes, that means us as well as the audience
in the film), like punk rock played at a chamber-music recital.
The Shape of Things finds LaBute back in the artsy, misanthropic
universe he's been edging away from lately (in the lovely Nurse
Betty and the atypical love story Possession).
In that respect, it's a bit of a regression. It's not an unwelcome
one, though. LaBute exaggerates hostilities and conflicts, gives
us master schemers nowhere to be found in real life, in order
to open a conversation about how we relate to each other and
how we create ourselves. The key to the movie is that it's not
about cold manipulation, but about a cold, manipulative view
of human nature. LaBute doesn't necessarily share it; he simply
presents it.
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