Neil LaBute
is back into a cruel, misanthropic demeanor on screen with The Shape
of Things, adapted from his own play which ran in London and New York.
It starts with Evelyn (Rachel Weisz of The Mummy
films) defacing a statue at a museum exhibit. The dorky security
guard, Adam, played by Paul Rudd, known from his work on "Friends," can't
do anything to stop this alluring art student from making over Adam in
a sexy turn on "Pygmalion."
The other college
couple in this sharp, unsympathetic comedy features Gretchen Mol's Jenny,
once involved with Adam, and now engaged to the macho Philip (Frederick
Weller), once Adam's roommate. Using the same bright cast from his
play, LaBute shapes his Things with an overly staged quality and
plenty of good Elvis Costello tunes before a wicked coda strongly tempts
one to relate to what the pernicious playwright projected from all the
naughty interplay.
