Your Friends & Neighbors (1998)

reviewed by
Jamie Peck

YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS Reviewed by Jamie Peck

Rating: ** (out of ****) Gramercy / 1:40 / 1998 / R (sex, language, abrasive dialogue) Cast: Jason Patric; Ben Stiller; Amy Brenneman; Catherine Keener; Aaron Eckhart; Nastassja Kinski Director: Neil LaBute Screenplay: Neil LaBute
Regarding the unsavory main individuals that give Neil LaBute's "Your Friends & Neighbors" its ironic title: They won't be there for you, and even Mister Rogers wouldn't offer up a howdy if he saw them coming his way. In fact, he'd probably hop on the Neighborhood Trolley and stay far, far away, which is very likely what moviegoers will do once word spreads that LaBute's sophomore effort possesses few of the disturbingly provocative hooks that turned his 1997 debut "In the Company of Men" into a hot-button classic. While there's a lot to get worked up over in "Your Friends & Neighbors," it's really just not worth the effort.

This "modern immorality tale," as the ads go, finds drama coach Jerry (Ben Stiller) growing sexually distant from his girlfriend Terri (Catherine Keener). Jerry decides to initiate an affair with Mary (Amy Brenneman), the wife of his best friend Barry (Company alum Aaron Eckhart), and when Terri finds out, she has a fling of her own with Cheri (Nastassja Kinski), a sexy art gallery employee who also catches the eye of Cary (Jason Patric), a buddy of Jerry and Barry's. The long 100 minutes it takes for these people to out-nasty each other feels like group therapy with a bunch of self-centered whiners or, worse, an episode of "Jerry Springer" sans schlock value.

All of the bed-hopping, put-downs and duplicitous characters, and "Your Friends & Neighbors" isn't even amusing in a "Melrose Place" sort of way. The blame may be in the repetitious screenplay, but it's certainly not in the acting - this ensemble is so excruciatingly believable that you'd just like to give everyone a good smack. Particularly whup-worthy is Patric's Cary, a repugnant lothario who owns both the funniest (when his occupation is revealed) and the creepiest (when he tells about his "best lay") scenes of this so-called black comedy. Stiller and Eckhart are close behind as creeps with different horniness outlets, but neither matches Patric's vile ferocity.

The women's roles aren't much nicer, save for Kinski, who stays on the underdeveloped side of things. Keener and Brenneman are fine as respectively curt and "sensitive" gals, but what's missing here is a reason to care about all of this depraved behavior. In "In the Company of Men," that sympathy generated from a deaf secretary who was the victim in a shocking scheme hatched by to cruel co-workers. The antagonists' behavior in that film sucked you into an uncommonly discomforting story, while here it sends these five irritating folks through terribly misguided motions over and over and over again. Save a seat for me, Fred. I'm coming with you.

© 1998 Jamie Peck E-mail: jpeck1@gl.umbc.edu Visit The Reel Deal Online: http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~jpeck1/ "If only we could learn to think more kindly of those who digest us, this movie could have ended happily." -Roger Ebert on "Phantoms"

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