The Shape of Things Critic Reviews

Very much in line with his maiden screen efforts "In the Company of Men" and "Your Friends and Neighbors"...ends with a satisfying shudder of recognition at the extreme cruelty possible within human relationships, particularly those conceived by Neil LaBute. Read the full review

LaBute has that rarest of attributes, a distinctive voice. You know one of his scenes at once. His dialogue is the dialogue overheard in trendy mid-scale restaurants, with the words peeled back to suggest the venom beneath.Read the full review

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. As a moral investigation, it's shallow and ultimately ludicrous. Read the full review

The actors nail the comic sting in every line, punctuated by eleven prime Elvis Costello songs. Read the full review

The cast helps enliven what could otherwise come off as a treatise. All four actors played these roles during the play's off-Broadway run. Read the full review

What starts out as a talky, modern-day re-interpretation of "Pygmalion" (Henry Higgins is explicitly mentioned) turns into something heart-wrenchingly bleak.Read the full review

Packing a dizzying array of motives and tensions into his careful, densely layered round robin, LaBute orchestrates The Shape of Things like a suspense thriller, full of hidden agendas and emotional switchbacks. Read the full review

Though the writing is often sharp, one is reminded repeatedly by the actors' theatrical delivery of some lines and by the confined settings that the movie's origins were on stage. Read the full review

Unfortunately, this film is not as convincing as LaBute's first feature ("In the Company of Men"), for it betrays its origins in the theatricality of its dialogue, resulting in an aura of artificiality. Read the full review