Despite the script's occasional pretentiousness, LaBute's characters are fully formed, and the solid story is rendered with humor and perversity.
Comment
05/09/03
The Shape of Things (2003)
65
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:133
Fresh:86
Rotten:47
Average Rating:6.3/10
Consensus: LaBute returns to his earlier themes of cruelty in relationships, and the results hit hard.
Theatrical Release:May 9, 2003 Limited
Box Office: $662,763
Synopsis: Rachel Weisz, Paul Rudd, Gretchen Mol, and Frederick Weller star in Neil LaBute's adaptation of his own stage play, which also featured all four actors. The film focuses on the unlikely romance... [More]
Starring: Rachel Weisz, Paul Rudd, Gretchen Mol, Frederick Weller
Director: Neil LaBute
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Reviews for The Shape of Things
[Labute's] is a milieu red in tooth and claw . . . where the innocent are just so much fodder for the buzz saw of Darwinism
05/01/03
It’s hard to believe, but LaBute seems to be getting even more insidious...twisting an old tale with a new take and his no-bones-about-it allusions to the creation myth.
05/15/03
Seems every much as finely calibrated as In the Company of Men.
05/09/03
Rudd's performance is a fearless one -- he's not afraid to be goofy or dorky.
04/27/03
I'm glad to see director Neil LaBute is back doing what he does best: creating some of the most memorably cruel characters in modern cinema.
05/08/03
Top CriticAnchored by two great leads and full of interesting, deeply debatable ideas, Shape still feels stagey and boxed in -- like a brilliantly unknowable friend existing in a world not your own.
05/12/03
An Adam and Eve love story for the new millennium - where all's fair in love and art.
05/09/03
Neil, you're a cruel, cruel man. I knew you had it in you.
05/06/03
Raises interesting questions about the power exerted in relationships and the amount of control a person can or should have over another.
05/09/03
The actors all benefit from intimate knowledge of difficult parts, and barbs at modern art and sexual mores do cut through.
04/01/06
This version of LaBute's ongoing project is crisp and aggressive, occasionally alienating or annoying, that is, effectively unlike other movies.
05/09/03
Rachel Weisz's treachery is admittedly fun to watch, but if you've seen any of LaBute's earlier films, you wonder if he just needs to start hanging out with nicer people once in a while.
05/29/03
Rachel Weisz's brilliantly layered performance as Evelyn -- barbed, vehement and oddly sorrowful -- keeps all options open.
01/06/04
...LaBute's done a fantastic job of creating four distinct characters who aren't easily identifiable.
05/19/03
[LaBute's] woven an engrossing yarn that combines his critical, often astringent intelligence with a concern for human feelings that's miles beyond anything found in his previous pictures.
05/08/03
This adaptation of LaBute's 2001 play provides a queasy investigation of male-female relations that ends with a satisfying shudder of recognition at the extreme cruelty possible within human relationships, particularly those conceived by Neil LaBute.
02/06/03
Top CriticThere was too much of the neurotic artist in the prose to speak for all art.
05/29/03
A motion picture not easy to shake...grim in its look at what one person is capable of doing to another, but it is not heartless.
05/10/03
After the muted and sometimes muddle-headed Possession, writer-director Neal LaBute revisits material he knows better than anyone -- the theater of cruelty that relationships between men and women can be.
05/08/03
Top CriticLatest News for The Shape of Things
August 31, 2006:
Critical Consensus: "Crank" Is Well-Ranked; "Illusionist" Is Magic, "Crossover" Is An Air-Ball, "Wicker Man" Gets Burned
This week at the movies, we've got hoopsters with big dreams ("Crossover," starring Anthony Mackie), scary goings-on on remote islands ("The Wicker Man,"... More...
February 17, 2006:
Paul Rudd Joins the "Reno" Police Force
The ever-likable Paul Rudd has joined the cast of "Reno 911! Miami," says Larry Carroll of MTV Movies, which is good news for comedy fans in general. Mr. Rudd... More...
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