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The Shape Of Things (2003)

tomatometer

64

Average Rating: 6.3/10
Reviews Counted: 134
Fresh: 86 | Rotten: 48

LaBute returns to his earlier themes of cruelty in relationships, and the results hit hard.

51

Average Rating: 5.7/10
Critic Reviews: 39
Fresh: 20 | Rotten: 19

LaBute returns to his earlier themes of cruelty in relationships, and the results hit hard.

audience

63

liked it
Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 7,376

My Rating

Movie Info

After a detour into lighter and more compassionate fare with Nurse Betty and Possession, Neil LaBute returns to the themes of his earlier films with this dark and corrosive look at male-female relationships. Adam (Paul Rudd) is a chubby, bespectacled nebbish of a college student who makes money in his spare time as a security guard at the university's art museum. One evening at work, Adam spies another student preparing to deface a statue -- Evelyn (Rachel Weisz), a beautiful art major who is

R, 1 hr. 36 min.

Drama

Neil LaBute

Sep 23, 2003

$0.7M

Focus Features

All Critics (135) | Top Critics (39) | Fresh (87) | Rotten (48) | DVD (8)

There's an immediacy to many scenes that's hard to deny. These people get under your skin and gnaw away.

May 30, 2003 Comment
Orlando Sentinel
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The facial jewellery, Elvis Costello music and cell phones notwithstanding, you keep expecting these people to challenge each other to duels with rapiers at dawn.

May 16, 2003 Full Review Source: Toronto Star | Comment
Toronto Star
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With outstanding performances from Rudd and Weisz, this is an unsettling, provocative and nasty little gem.

May 12, 2003 Full Review Source: Ebert & Roeper | Comment
Ebert & Roeper
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LaBute would like us to know that neither sex has a monopoly on behaving very, very badly. Alert the media!

May 11, 2003 Full Review Source: New York Magazine | Comment
New York Magazine
Top Critic IconTop Critic

At best, the movie is a problematic chamber piece; at worst, a misdirected, slightly misanthropic pretension.

May 9, 2003 Comment
Washington Post
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Seems every much as finely calibrated as In the Company of Men.

May 9, 2003 Comment
Washington Post
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[Director] Labute presents a ballsy, daring, and truly original portrait of human individuals...

April 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Cinema Crazed | Comment
Cinema Crazed

A grim and cynical but ultimately arresting exploration of personal expression and modern love.

August 7, 2008 Full Review Source: Sacramento News & Review | Comment
Sacramento News & Review

When the players themselves are conceived this superficially, LaBute winds up invalidating his own point.

February 12, 2008 Full Review Source: AV Club | Comment
AV Club

Neil LaBute is among the more interesting cinematic talents to emerge these past half-dozen years.

February 12, 2008 Full Review Source: Observer [UK] | Comment
Observer [UK]

LaBute gives us a sequence of scathing emotional violence that outdoes anything I've seen this year.

September 23, 2007 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | Comment
eFilmCritic.com

LaBute's observations about our self-destructive obsession with appearances may not be original, but his ability to create articulate, provocative characters is.

July 10, 2007 Full Review Source: Film Journal International | Comment
Film Journal International

Go see The Shape of Things, a peculiarly acted, nasty caper, and decide for yourself whether we are being set up by LaBute with a manipulative device or if he is speaking to our frailties and telling truths.

August 17, 2006 Full Review Source: Bangitout.com | Comment
Bangitout.com

The actors all benefit from intimate knowledge of difficult parts, and barbs at modern art and sexual mores do cut through.

April 1, 2006 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | Comment
Empire Magazine

There are barbs here to tickle anyone's paranoia, but the callousness isn't illustrative, just exploitative.

February 9, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

LaBute returns to familiar territory (albeit with a gender twist) that would have been best left unvisited.

August 4, 2004 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | Comment
eFilmCritic.com

What on earth has happened to this director?

January 15, 2004 Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | Comment
Guardian [UK]

Rachel Weisz's brilliantly layered performance as Evelyn -- barbed, vehement and oddly sorrowful -- keeps all options open.

January 6, 2004 Full Review Source: Sight and Sound | Comment
Sight and Sound

Some critics have called the film stolid and stagy. I think the way it sits still and looks hard is just the point, and the key to its effect.

January 4, 2004 Comment

...holds the dubious distinction of being the laziest stage-to-screen transfer I've ever seen.

December 18, 2003 Full Review Source: Film Experience | Comment
Film Experience

should have been left on the stage.

December 2, 2003 Full Review Source: RTE Interactive (Dublin, Ireland) | Comment

Provocateur LaBute not only dramatically throws the 'c' word at us in this film, but he also goes to great lengths to show us one.

November 19, 2003 Full Review Source: Big Picture | Comment
Big Picture

Brutal, sexy and astonishingly acted.

November 11, 2003 Full Review Source: BBC | Comment
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for The Shape Of Things

Neil LaBute completes a trilogy (unofficial, of course) of films about how men and women act and treat each other. "The Shape of Things" (adapted from his stage play like his other two features, the memorable "In the Company of Men" and the dicey "Your Friends & Neighbors") is another scathing and insightful look into

February 27, 2011
stevenecarrier
Steven Carrier

Super Reviewer

A pretty well put together film. There's parts where the "awkwardness" of a lot of the scenes overtake the mood of the movie. I didn't feel as connected to the characters as I wanted to. Weisz and Rudd are both terrific, with a twist I saw coming from miles away. Still, worth watching if you like movies featuring good

November 3, 2008
Dan Schultz

Super Reviewer

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