The Shape of Things
|
List Price: Our Price: $6.78 You Save: $8.20 (55%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $1.50 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of The Shape of Things
Movie Review: Great movie with Rachel Weisz giving a great performance.
Summary: 5 Stars
Neil LaBute's is back in fine form with a story that even rivals his previous classic In the Company of Man. Rachel Weisz is superb as a strange and crazy art student who wants to remake Paul RuddInto the image of the perfect man. With all of Neil LaBute's plays, expect the unexpected. Rachel is stunning as Evelyn, and her performance makes this film as special as it is. Paul Rudd is great as well as Adam, plus Gretchen Mol and Fred Weller are great as Jenny and Phillip. Neil LaBute not only out does himself this time, but with Rachel Weisz's help makes a modern classic.
Movie Review: I am still thinking about this movie.
Summary: 5 Stars
What a movie. I never saw the ending coming and it had my jaw on the floor. Rachel Weiz was simply perfect as the art student turning Paul Rudd into a "perfect man." You fall in love with her and then she rips your heart right out. This movie is well worth everyone's time. Push away those Hollywood garbage on your Blockbuster shelfs, and pick this movie up ASAP!
Movie Review: Quick ship - Perfect Condition
Summary: 5 Stars
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.Movie Review: Wundebar!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an amazingly made movie based off of a wonderful play. I would highly recomend this movie to anybody who enjoys Neil LaBute or Paul Rudd.Movie Review: disjointed but interesting and well-acted esp by weisz
Summary: 4 Stars
The Shape of Things is one of those films whose ambition is greater than its achievement. It clearly provokes thought but to what price? The film had the potential to be a brilliant exploration of the morality of art and contemporary culture, but as it stands, LaBute's vision is challening, piquant, overly simplistic, and frequently just tonally off. Still, two days after first seeing this film, I long to revisit what I enjoyed- and like an oddly pleasing pressure point, endure the parts of the film that irked me.
The film, based on LaBute's stage play and featuring all the original actors, depicts a metaphorical and artificial conceit owing to such sources as Pygmalion and Genesis. Without revealing the central conceit, the unraveling of which, may surprise viewers, the plot is as follows: Adam (Paul Rudd) a truly nerdy museum guard meets Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) an "art terrorist" to quote LaBute. As the relationship progresses, Evelyn gradually persuades Adam to change his appearance and lifestyle. After getting a nose job (Rudd sports a hilarious prosthetic in the film's first half), several pounds, and a bad haircut, the handsome Rudd as we have come to know him finally emerges in the latter half of the film: the fruit, if you will, of Evelyn's labors. Jenny (Gretchen Mol) and Philip (Fred Weller)- an engaged couple and Adam's friends- seek to intervene, complicating the plot's outcome.
The story is told entirely through these four characters using point-and-shoot setups. In other words, this film is pure dialogue: rhythmic, intelligent, but inherently artificial and contrived. Frequently the characters sputtering out these pungent and quirky lines seem more like marionettes to LaBute's writerly wit than thinking, breathing entities. However, once in a while, LaBute lets the characters overcome the artificiality and emerge as real people. For instance, when Evelyn and Phil get in a fight about controversial art, the passions ignited between the two is palpable- and hilarious. Evelyn and Phil felt real in that scene and the fact that they both present their arguments poorly is refreshingly realistic and ambiguous. Another perfect- and hilarious- moment occurs after Jenny first sees Adam post-rhinoplasty and asks him, concerned and curious, "How much weight *did* you lose?" It's moments like these that present LaBute as a genuinely unique voice with an understanding of everyday human behavior.
However, the overarching themes that the film raises are frequently undermined by the aforementioned artificiality of the characters. For instance, how can we, as an audience, accept a treatise on the callousness of modern art- the way it dehumanizes- when LaBute himself fails to effectively present the realities of the human experience? LaBute has been called "misanthropic" for this failure. I think a more appropriate term would be "lazy." As an artist with a fixed agenda, he should realize that his perception of the world resonates better when it addresses multiple sides of the considered issue. Up until the weirdly melodramatic last scenes and excepting the intermittently brilliant little scenes, the human element- so critical in understanding Evelyn's perception of art- is all but replaced by the stagy artificiality of marionette puppets in the hands of a witty and angry God. (If the Adam and Eve reference holds true, then LaBute is surely the God).
Perhaps the crowning achievement of The Shape of Things is the way that LaBute elicits a tremendous performance from Rachel Weisz. An actress sadly known for her soulless blockbusters like The Mummy movies and Constantines, she shows a range of emotion as Evelyn- a darkly ominous restlessness that I found highly engaging and rare. She's alternately sympathetic and contemptible, sometimes at the same time. Weisz also happens to pull off what seems to be one of the most contrived and ridiculous endings ever- LaBute's weakest moment as a director. Rudd, Weller, and Mol all shine in their roles, but it is Weisz who most transcends her director's artificiality and achieves something that, ironically, her character most dismisses: humanity.