YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1998 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): *** 1/2
"Great, couldn't be better," is the universal refrain of the smiling characters that inhabit writer and director Neil LaBute's second film, YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS. That they are actually anything but is no surprise given the filmmaker. His brilliant first picture, IN THE COMPANY OF MEN, which was on numerous best-of-the-year lists last year, established a benchmark for human cruelty.
LaBute's latest battle of the sexes has the women as well as the men playing both predator and victim. YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS paints such a hopelessly bleak picture of relationships that we may want to become a nation of hermits. When characters share moments of joy, you can be sure that LaBute will soon pull the rug out from under them and that their little sexual flings will turn into horrific mistakes.
In his first film, LaBute had two men on the prowl to harass a single woman, a shy, deaf coworker of theirs. This time LaBute introduces six unique characters: a married couple, a couple living together, and two single people. They will all be devastated by the time this "immorality tale" concludes. The bleak story engulfs the audience's emotions but provides just enough humor to make it bearable. The ensemble casting is superlative so the emotional drain it puts on the viewers is well worth its toll.
As Cary, the story's only thoroughly evil character, Jason Patric has the easiest part. A doctor whose lesser depravities include drop-kicking a plastic fetus when no one is watching. Cary is closest in actions to IN THE COMPANY OF MEN's male characters. His steam room confession of a childhood atrocity forms the nadir of the story's tales of inhumanity.
Nastassja Kinski plays Cheri, an artist's assistant and the film's only completely sympathetic character. LaBute has the other characters coming into the art gallery where Cheri works and engaging in the same series of lines with her but with differing results.
As the nerdy drama teacher, Jerry, Ben Stiller is the story's most unsatisfying and ingratiating character. Stiller, last seen hilariously in THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY, makes Jerry into a bit too much of a caricature. A Woody Allen clone, Jerry drives his live-in girlfriend, Terri, crazy with incessant talking during sex. She feels like he is the weather channel announcer since he is obsessed with issuing constant updates during their trysts. When she finally finds a lover more to her liking, she tells her that it is the silence that she likes best about their lovemaking.
Catherine Keener, with her translucent acting style, plays Terri, a writer - well, sort of. When Cheri asks if she might have ever read anything of Terri's, Terri answers, "only if you read the side of your tampon box." Terri is ashamed of her career, but Cheri finds it fascinating, turning over boxes in the grocery store to see if she can find any of Terri's work. They hit it off in one of the few romances in the story that has much real promise. Terri has a cynic's heart. "Love's a disease," Terri concludes. "Yeah, but it's curable," Cheri tries to console her.
At the fulcrum of the film is the married couple Mary and Barry, played by Amy Brenneman and IN THE COMPANY OF MEN's star, Aaron Eckhart. Their picture postcard perfect marriage is quickly shown to be a facade. They aren't happy with any part of their marriage, least of all their sex life.
On either side of this fulcrum are the single sex buddy scenes - the women gather at lunch and the men in the locker room. Full of false bravado, their conversations quickly cut to the bone as reality begins to set in.
The male bonding, and to a lesser extent the female, comes back to the question of naming one's best ever sexual encounter. One guy confesses that he is the best that he has ever had. Other answers prove more troublesome and baneful.
Sometimes the characters' sexual adventures start off with hope and promise. One adulterous affair has the characters giggling gleefully like teenagers. They start their clandestine arrangement with the wonderful intimacy of a simple hug. LaBute, like a vengeful god, will soon make them pay for their indiscretions.
"Life is complicated," Cheri tells Jerry. "It's a funny world. People can't communicate." In LaBute's stories, life certainly is complex, and, when people speak, things only get worse. His characters' vituperative language is more cutting than knives. Rarely raising their voices, they manage to inflict mortal wounds with moments of relatively quiet terror. Biting social commentary wrapped in the thin veneer of a black comedy, his films have much to say even if they can be overwhelming. Unlike action films you forget in an hour, his movies will stay with you for years afterwards, provoking thought and reflection.
YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS runs 1:40. It is rated R for profanity, sex, and very mature themes and would be appropriate for teenagers only if they are older and mature.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: www.InternetReviews.com
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