Your Friends & Neighbors Review
by "Nathaniel R. Atcheson" (nate AT pyramid DOT net)October 1st, 1998
Your Friends & Neighbors (1998)
Director: Neil LaBute
Cast: Amy Brenneman, Aaron Eckhart, Catherine Keener, Natassja Kinski, Jason Patric, Ben Stiller
Screenplay: Neil LaBute
Producers: Steve Golin, Jason Patric
Runtime: 99 min.
US Distribution:
Rated R: Graphic sexual dialogue, strong sexuality and language
By Nathaniel R. Atcheson ([email protected])
Some films are cynical, and others make you crave for something as benign as cynicism. To call Neil LaBute a cynical filmmaker is a vast understatement, for here is a man who has made two of the most disturbing films I've seen in the last five years. His debut feature, In the Company of Men, is a harsh tale of two men exercising their hatred of women on an innocent one. His new film, Your Friends & Neighbors, is far more brutal -- it illustrates the lives of six miserable people and their miserable sex lives.
The six characters are all related in some way. Aaron Eckhart and Amy Brenneman play a married couple who provide the facade of being happy to their friends; the man, however, can only be sexually pleased with masturbation, and his wife thinks that his lack of performance is because of her. They're friends with a boyfriend-girlfriend couple, played by Ben Stiller and Catherine Keener. Stiller's character is a self-absorbed drama professor who likes to talk during sex, and Keener is a bitchy woman who hates talking during sex.
The central conflicts arise when Stiller's character expresses interest in the Brenneman character, and the two attempt an affair. At the same time, Keener meets a woman (Natassja Kinski) and has an affair with her. On the outset of all of this, not directly related to any particular aspect of the film, is Jason Patric, who plays a womanizing monster. He's friends with Eckhart's character. On a side note, I've gone out of my way to avoid using any of the characters' names; this is because LaBute refrains from using their names at any time during the picture.
If you're looking for fun, you won't find it in Your Friends & Neighbors. This is an ugly, painful film. I didn't like it, so much as I "liked" it and admired it for its strength. I've seen it twice, and it certainly passes for entertainment -- there isn't a boring moment, and I imagine most viewers will be adequately diverted regardless of how they like the film. There are individual scenes that are horrifying, but you'll find that the overall impression is what hurts the most. LaBute thinks we're all hopelessly screwed up, and this film is a deeply compelling argument for that assertion. Its central theme, I believe, coincides with his reasons for not using the characters' names. It also explains why the locations are never described, why everything takes place in generic apartments, gyms, and restaurants. LaBute wants his film to look like Anyplace, USA, in which Everyone is sexually depraved.
I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I laughed through much of this picture. As hopeless as it is, as ugly and harrowing as LaBute makes it, he wrings distant and uncomfortable laughs out of odd situations. One of the funniest scenes has Eckhart and Brenneman in a grocery store; Eckhart says, "I think that, for a while, we just need to treat each other like . . . meat. You should see me as a giant . . . penis, and I should see you as a big . . . vagina." It's kind of a disturbing thought, but it's one of the lighter moments in the film, one that permits guiltless laughter. The second half of the film is far less forgiving. In the film's most intense and most horrific scene, Patrick talks about his "best" sexual encounter -- and he calmly describes a homosexual rape that he committed in his teen years. Perhaps I shouldn't be discussing all of this in my review, for a lot of the film works because it takes its audience by surprise. I doubt that it matters much -- this scene gripped me even the second time I saw it.
The six performances are all superb, and LaBute's writing is sharp and realistic. Patrick is at his very best here -- I've never seen him act like this, and the character he creates here is one of the most vivid and hateful I've ever seen. Eckhart is also fantastic; after seeing his turn in Company, it's surprising to see him as a sympathetic character. Brenneman is the best of the female parts, and is also the most sympathetic character -- she doesn't talk a lot, but the array of emotions she flies through are all believable and upsetting. Stiller and Keener are good, but play mean-spirited people; Kinski is also good, but her character ultimately becomes hopelessly pathetic.
And that's where the film falters. In the Company of Men has characters you could latch on to -- people lived through that story. Nobody lives through Your Friends & Neighbors. A certain level of cynicism is okay, but I can't believe that we're all as bad off as LaBute wants us to think. Some of the story elements aren't completely believable -- for instance, I find it difficult to believe that Patrick's and Eckhart's characters would be friends in real life. What's to be said for a film that attacks its audience as strongly as this, and then tells them that there's no way out? I can only hope that LaBute is warning us, saying, "Don't let this happen to you." I'd hate to think that LaBute wants us to know that we've already let it happened, simply by being human.
***1/2 out of ****
(8/10, A-)
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Nathaniel R. Atcheson
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