The Shape of Things 2003

Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News: The problem with Shape is that it's exactly what it seems: a recycled four-character play ... that someone mistook for a clever movie. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: The cast helps enliven what could otherwise come off as a treatise. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: There's nothing cinematic here, either in the execution or the performances, which are little more than speeches. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: In The Shape of Things, love doesn't just hurt: It bites, and bites deep. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: With outstanding performances from Rudd and Weisz, this is an unsettling, provocative and nasty little gem. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: It's a compelling story, getting better as it goes along, but nonetheless suffers from being too obviously bound to its stage origins. Read more

Mark Caro, Chicago Tribune: Though you still sense some distance between the filmmaker and his creations, he lets you warm up to these people so you're on board as he explores the larger issues their behavior suggests. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Aside from the faces of the actors, there is very little in The Shape of Things that is recognizably human. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: After the muted and sometimes muddle-headed Possession, writer-director Neal LaBute revisits material he knows better than anyone -- the theater of cruelty that relationships between men and women can be. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: When the players themselves are conceived this superficially, LaBute winds up invalidating his own point. Read more

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: ... pretty flat. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: LaBute has extracted the maximum amount of meaning from his material by letting us approach it from every possible angle, like a piece of sculpture. Read more

Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: You walk out feeling and thinking differently than when you walked in. Isn't that what art is supposed to do? Read more

Paul Clinton (CNN.com), CNN.com: This powerful look at society's obsession with looks -- with 'the shape of things' -- will leave you with plenty of food for thought. Read more

Vic Vogler, Denver Post: Intellectually, Shape is a tour de force that can't be dismissed merely for the coldness it makes us feel. Artistically, it should have been called 'Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.' Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Didactic rather than enigmatic. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: Mr. LaBute is in danger of becoming an arch, one-trick relationship pony. In other words, he's starting to get boring. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: The Shape of Things may be [LaBute's] best, cruelest, most vital act of confrontation yet. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: [An] acrid chamber piece. Read more

Peter Rainer, New York Magazine/Vulture: LaBute would like us to know that neither sex has a monopoly on behaving very, very badly. Alert the media! Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Characters make self-conscious jokes, and other characters answer them with clumsy sarcasm; every line comes complete with arch, invisible quotation marks. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: Besides repeating his premise that only fools fall in love and deserve whatever circle of hell they enter for it, [LaBute] seems to really believe that morality has no place in art. Certainly, he's keeping it out of his. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The Shape of Things is imperfect, but the flaws don't detract much from what is a singularly effective, grim perspective of contemporary romance. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: LaBute has that rarest of attributes, a distinctive voice. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Every time [LaBute's] characters start to act natural, begin to breathe, live and display ordinary human desire, they bump into the walls of the wildly unlikely plot structure in which he has imprisoned them. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: The film is certainly clever enough to hold an audience's interest throughout, though in the end it's a victim of its own ambition. Read more

David Edelstein, Slate: In LaBute's movies, people are either clueless dupes or psychotic manipulators, while art is meant to rub your face in unpleasant 'truths.' And I think he takes a little too much pleasure in that nose-rubbing. Read more

Jeff Strickler, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The four actors, who originated their roles on stage, know the characters well and have developed a keen sense for the interaction among them. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: The facial jewellery, Elvis Costello music and cell phones notwithstanding, you keep expecting these people to challenge each other to duels with rapiers at dawn. Read more

Time Out: There are barbs here to tickle anyone's paranoia, but the callousness isn't illustrative, just exploitative. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Raises interesting questions about the power exerted in relationships and the amount of control a person can or should have over another. Read more

Dennis Harvey, Variety: This adaptation of LaBute's 2001 play provides a queasy investigation of male-female relations that ends with a satisfying shudder of recognition at the extreme cruelty possible within human relationships, particularly those conceived by Neil LaBute. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: Not nearly as effective on-screen. Read more