After making two films from the scripts of other writers (the decent Nurse Betty and the monstrous Possession), writer-director Neil LaBute returns to the edgy, feel-bad material that made him a darling of the indie film world. The Shape of Things is much more like In the Company of Men and Your Friends & Neighbors, and that should make filmgoers happy, even if most of them will exit the theatre clutching their stomachs as if they were just sucker-punched by Nelson Muntz.

Things, which is based on LaBute's play and features role reprisals by all four lead actors, is set at Mercy College on the coast of Southern California.  The film is broken into nine scenes, which are completely devoid of anything except dialogue and ambient noise, and separated by very loud Elvis Costello songs.

We get to hear the first song through the headphones of Evelyn (Rachel Weisz, Confidence), who is busy snapping pictures of a Zeus statue at Mercy's museum.  To get a closer shot, she steps over the velvet rope, which draws the attention of a security guard named Adam (Paul Rudd, The Chateau).  Evelyn refuses to stay on the proper side of the rope, and even threatens to deface the statue because it's "false art."  Adam pleads with her to hold off, at least until his shift is over.  If that's not a meet-cute, I don't know what is (I won't even get into the Adam and Eve thing).

The two begin to talk, and we learn Evelyn is an MFA student, while Adam is a slightly nerdy, considerably pudgy and incredibly uptight student who works part-time at a video store to avoid having a social life.  They're the perfect yin-yang – Evelyn brimming with confidence, and Adam wallowing in insecurity.  Somehow, he musters the courage to ask her out, and she shocks him by accepting.

Flash forward several weeks, and the two are inseparable lovebirds, which draws nothing but slack-jawed stares from Adam's friends, the engaged Jenny (Gretchen Mol, Sweet and Lowdown) and Phillip (Fred Weller, The Business of Strangers).  Actually, they're not sure which is more surprising - that Adam seems to be in love, or that he's slowly mutating into a good-looking, self-assured stranger.  Adam loses weight, then his glasses.  He gets a new haircut and abandons his ratty corduroy jacket for a reversible number from Tommy Hilfiger.  It's like watching Extreme Makeover!

Before you start thinking Things might be a typical romantic comedy (i.e., a sex-swapped Pygmalion), keep in mind we're dealing with LaBute.  That means two things:  A cadence that will remind astute ears of David Mamet, and a slowly building nausea as the film reaches what should be a fairly predictable - yet still hopelessly devastating - conclusion.  Things seems a lot like LaBute's response to the Nancy-Boy critics and viewers who couldn't handle a deaf woman being the butt of the joke in his award-winning In the Company of Men.  Todd Solondz used a similar approach in Storytelling, responding to criticism that his previous films were titillating just to be controversial.  LaBute perfectly mimics this in a scene where Evelyn and Phillip argue over the ultimately defaced Zeus statue.

To date, I think Things is by far the best ensemble acting I've seen in 2003, and a lot of that is because these four actors are very familiar with their roles from LaBute's stage production.  The actors wear their parts like a glove, and this is never more evident in the aforementioned Zeus argument, or the scene where Adam and Jenny talk around their personal issues without even scratching the surface of what they really mean (a/k/a Mamet-speak).  Even without the Brando-esque cottonballs or the fat suit, Rudd steals the show here, which makes you wonder why he's been slumming on Friends lately.

1:36 –

for language and some sexuality