LaBute's Masterpiece
Added 8/27/2009
Perhaps not quite as nihilistic or misanthropic as LaBute's "In the Company of Men" or "Your Friends and Neighbors", "The Shape of Things" takes aim at the potential psychosis that can evolve when an artist expresses more empathy and concern for the power of her own work than for human subjects. The stellar performances by Rudd and Weisz are deceptively complex and the allusions to Bruce Nauman and Godard are ingenious both formally and thematically. A postmodern version of "Frankenstein" reworked through the guise of gender wars and the horrific throes of dating, this might be LaBute's masterpiece.
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Quick ship - Perfect Condition
Added 7/10/2008
Another "out of the ordinary" Hollywood flick. Rachel Weisz is a killer in her role, which is certainly not one I would expect to see her play. A bit dark, but great directing and acting. Worth watching more than once.
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Ok - not as good as In the Company of Men
Added 2/17/2008
Not a bad film, but not as profound as it is trying to be. Compared to the directors earlier work (In the Company of Men), this film is a bit of a disappointment. Still, the film does have its moments, and a couple of funny scenes. Eh. There's better stuff out there.
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Gets where it was going
Added 12/1/2007
Weisz holds this together. It gets too talky at times but is nicely shot and paced pretty well. The ending is a nice nasty surprise. A little too bitchy for my taste but it does what it sets out to do, with a fair bit of aplomb and style.
Solid comedy of modern manners full of acerbic edginess, brought from stage to screen pretty decently.
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Remember most reviews....
Added 7/11/2007
..on amazon are overweighted in the positive direction. Always subtract at least one star to allow for the over representation of film students who generally seem to rate pretentious schlock very highly.
SoT gives an excellent depiction of a psychopathic woman who uses her position as a graduate art student to destroy an unsuspecting fairly decent guy. Whether that was the intention of the filmmaker I can't say. I wasn't interested enough to watch it again with the commentary track.
However the movie has one big inherent flaw.... it doesn't end. It cops out and leaves the viewer with the plot unresolved. So it is a play in two acts and as Shakespeare so amply showed us a good play is in three acts.
Maybe the director couldn't come up with an ending and so left it this way hoping that the viewers would do like so many viewers do and make excuses for his incompetence for him. I don't blame him. It works pretty well. Look how many people here he fooled.
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LaBute's Masterpiece
Added 8/27/2009
Perhaps not quite as nihilistic or misanthropic as LaBute's "In the Company of Men" or "Your Friends and Neighbors", "The Shape of Things" takes aim at the potential psychosis that can evolve when an artist expresses more empathy and concern for the power of her own work than for human subjects. The stellar performances by Rudd and Weisz are deceptively complex and the allusions to Bruce Nauman and Godard are ingenious both formally and thematically. A postmodern version of "Frankenstein" reworked through the guise of gender wars and the horrific throes of dating, this might be LaBute's masterpiece.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Quick ship - Perfect Condition
Added 7/10/2008
Another "out of the ordinary" Hollywood flick. Rachel Weisz is a killer in her role, which is certainly not one I would expect to see her play. A bit dark, but great directing and acting. Worth watching more than once.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Ok - not as good as In the Company of Men
Added 2/17/2008
Not a bad film, but not as profound as it is trying to be. Compared to the directors earlier work (In the Company of Men), this film is a bit of a disappointment. Still, the film does have its moments, and a couple of funny scenes. Eh. There's better stuff out there.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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