Your Friends and Neighbors

Neil LaBute | USA | 1998 | 99 mins

If In the Company of Men was an assured debut, Your Friends and Neighbors is a confirmation of an uncommon talent. It's that rare thing, a second feature that actually improves on the audacious debut that preceded it.

The most talked about aspect of In the Company of Men was, of course, its apparent misogyny. Personally, I think LaBute is more a misanthropist than a misogynist. He may dislike women, but that's only because they make up half the population. To simply see misogyny was to fail to recognise the film's ironies and its theme of masculine conflicts, with the Iago-like Chad (ab)using a woman as a means of getting at his male victim. Your Friends and Neighbors seems to confirms this. Of its six main characters - two unhappily married couples (Ben Stiller and Catherine Keener and Amy Brenneman and Aaron Eckhart), a borderline sexual psychopath (Jason Patrick), and a lesbian artists assistant (Natassja Kinski) - none are exactly what you'd call pleasant. They lie to and cheat on each other with abandon. But in every case the men come across as far worse.

An emerging LaBute signature is an audacious use of music. Your Friends and Neighbors takes the already sparse approach of its predecessor further, with intriguing fragments of Metallica on cellos. LaBute's mise-en-scene has also developed. Using widescreen for intimate chamber cinema is always a challenge. He meets it with aplomb, skilfully framenting space to highlight the emotional distances between characters. It's surely no accident that at one point we see a prominently placed poster for Godard's Le Mepris, that textbook example of the ironic possibilities of widescreen. The film also showcases LaBute's obvious talent for getting great performances. This raises the question of what Catherine Keener, a perennial scene-stealer, must do to to get the recognition she deserves.

If the film has a weakness it's perhaps some improbable plotting. I'm thinking here of the way in which each of the three men visits the gallery where Kinski works and proceeds to embark on the same conversation/chat-up attempt. But even this contrivance can be forgiven. LaBute uses it as a way of showing their lack of insight compared to Keener's character: Only another woman realises that "artist's assistant" means "glorified secretary".

LaBute, then, has followed up an acclaimed debut with an even more accomplished piece of film-making. I wouldn't be surprised if this one soon gets labelled a ‘modern classic'.

Review by Keith H Brown
Taken from EUFS programme spring 2000