YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS Cast: Jason Patric, Ben Stiller, Catherine Keener, Aaron Eckhart, Amy Brenneman, Nastassja Kinski Director: Neil LaBute Producers: Steve Golin, Jason Patric Screenplay: Neil LaBute Cinematography: Nancy Schreiber Reviewed by Luke Buckmaster
On the Buckmaster scale of 0 stars (bomb), to 5 stars (a masterpiece): 4 stars
It's true how the saying goes - "if you want reality, look out the window." The fascinating thing about watching a Neil LaBute film is that they serve as the windows, peaking into lives of disillusioned oddballs; people who represent different elements of society, all trapped inside LaBute's narrative prisms that reflect different parts of ourselves back at us.
LaBute's astounding debut film In the Company of Men quickly glided in and out of selected Australian cinemas last year, suffering from more than just a few negative reviews, and presumably relied on audience word of mouth for the few people who were fortunate enough to see it. The film was meticulously plotted and sharply directed by LaBute, who laced every one of its scenes with dark - some might say twisted - humor, not before developing a screenplay that functioned both as a character study and a manifestation of the director's biting views on corporate life in America. He turned a roller coaster of a screenplay into a power house film; a movie that builds blazingly fast physiological momentum in the minds of those who watch it, before the inevitably nasty conclusion that puts a new resonance on everything that preceded it. It's an experience that's hard to shake.
Also hard to shake - but on a different level - is Your Friends and Neighbors, which, like the film before it, promises to tell us as much about its characters as it does ourselves. In essence, the film is very much like a stage play in that its settings and backdrops are not crucial to its plot; for instance, LaBute often films in a supermarket or a bookstore because, heck, these are places for us simply to listen to his characters talk. And they do talk. The vast majority of the film is dialogue based, and this ensures lengthy conversations between the five principal characters.
It was hard to write a synopsis for this film, since no character's name is ever mentioned in all of its running time - the characters talk to each other as if they are strangers (my kingdom for a festival press kit!). Only after the film could I find out their names. Drama teacher Jerry (Ben Stiller) is told to "shut the fuck up" during sex by his girlfriend Terri (Catherine Keener) - it appears he talks too much. Jerry's best friend Barry (Aaron Eckhart, who played Chad to perfection in In the Company of Men) is having sexual difficulties with his wife Mary (Amy Brenneman). He is not worried about the situation, however, because Barry firmly believes that no woman can make love to him quite like he can. Jerry and Barry's pal Cary (Jason Patric) is a ruthlessly honest and aggressive womanizer. All the characters search for happiness in the form of sexual bliss, and none of them can seem to find satisfaction (LaBute includes a lesbian, a couple of affairs and a retelling of a homosexual encounter for good measure).
Your Friends and Neighbors is really about a failure of communication in society, in an age where sexual innocence has not only been lost, it's been trampled on. It's hard to pinpoint the foundations of the film's themes - exactly where it is coming or what it is trying to achieve - but that's all part of LaBute's confronting direction. With tight camera shots that seemed shoved right in front of the actors faces, he brings us right into the picture, then tells us everything we think we need to know, only for us to later realize that he really didn't tell us much at all.
That's not to say that the dialogue in Your Friends and Neighbors is shallow, instead, it's just very restrained, and flows awkwardly with a strong sense of familiarity - a sense that we've talked about similar things ourselves, even though the truth might be that we've never mustered up enough courage to ask our friends about the best fuck they've ever had (and, if this is a frequent topic in your conversations, chances are you'll have never heard anything quite like Jason Patric's post-gym shower story). With so much talking but so little reflection on their own lives, we must presume that sometime off-screen the characters are doing the real talking, the soul-searching within themselves. We must presume this because otherwise the characters become too robotic, too cold to be intimate with, but so damn ruthless that we can't help but enjoy watching and being disgusted by them - they're all Mr Hydes and no Dr Jekles. We can presume, safely, that much of LaBute's power comes from the things he doesn't tell us.
He is certainty a glass-is-half-empty kind of director, but it would be naive to presume that he doesn't have reason for being so. LaBute's a director without subtlety, and a writer whose screenplays are tight, somber and aggressive in tone. Whilst Your Friends and Neighbors is not the incredible film that In the Compmany of Men was, it's an experimental piece that's works on similar levels (although toned down a few notches in comparison). LaBute does take some missteps on the way, including allowing his narrative to become a little too void of action, and the film - although scripted precisely and sharply - feels a little messy upon completion.
Without going into too much detail - I am already pushing my word limit - the film's cast all contribute excellent performances. Ben Stiller displays a confident yet reserved charisma as the scheming Jerry, and Aaron Eckhart and Jason Patric are also fine. The women fare less well, mainly because the men took the meatiest parts.
"If you want reality, look out the window." Screw that. Open the door, and climb inside the world of Neil LaBute. You know you want to. Just don't come running back to me and don't, whatever you do, say I didn't warn you.
Read more of my reviews at In Film Australia http://infilmau.iah.net
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