Another summer blockbuster season is underway and writer/director Neil LaBute's The Shape of Things stands apart from the teen-oriented pack with a story boasting complex characters, philosophical themes and adult situations. Industry types will peg its late May arrival as a case of counter-programming, a rare summertime adult film meant solely for adult audiences. Average moviegoers might see it more as an anomaly. Summer is a time for razzle-dazzle and make-believe images, and The Shape of Things offers neither. It's mature, more so than The Matrix Reloaded, whose R-rating owes more to violent action than any adult situations.
What's even more unique is that The Shape of Things is a dialogue-driven film surrounded by movies that assault the eyes with the latest special effects. X2: X-Men United shows audiences fantastic images they've never seen before. The Shape of Things delivers dialogue audiences never expected to hear in theaters. There's a wow factor involved with The Shape of Things, it's just more controversial in nature.
The words work their magic in LaBute's adaptation of his stage play The Shape of Things. Nobody breaks into applause or starts repeating dialogue the way they do at The Matrix Reloaded. The excitement is contained within the characters, their relationships and the dialogue exchanged between them.
In The Shape of Things, a nerdy English student (Paul Rudd) falls in love with an eccentric art student (Rachel Weisz). Things are looking up until he learns the reasons behind her romantic actions toward him.
It's near the end of the 2003 Sundance Film Festival as LaBute arrives in Park City, Utah, nursing a cold. Told about the shocked responses from festival audiences to his film, LaBute laughs. He's heard it all before, and he doesn't mind it in the least.
"I like the actors to make suggestions," LaBute says. "I listen to what they say, and I make the changes if I like their suggestions. I'm not married to the words, but if it doesn't work, we remain with what's on the page."
LaBute is a large, bearish man with clunky glasses and a shaggy mane of hair. He looks more like the next-door neighbor than a controversial filmmaker and playwright. Yet, after you listen to LaBute speak for a while, it becomes clear that his family life and middle-class upbringing are keys to his storytelling. He speaks openly about his Mormon upbringing and the impact his faith continues to make on his work. He's gotten in trouble with the Mormon Church for making one his characters a Mormon. There were warnings, LaBute says, but he continues to be a Mormon Church member.
Asked if The Shape of Things is meant to be experienced as shocking, LaBute laughs. His choice line of dialogue at the film's climax is intentional. Still, he wants people to think about what they heard, not just be surprised.
"It's a great word," actor Paul Rudd tells me, speaking earlier in the festival. "It's more powerful than 'bitch.' It starts with that hard 'C' sound and ends with a forceful 'T.' It makes an impact, just the sound of it, and that's all about Neil (LaBute). He knows how to provoke people with dialogue.
"I have such a nice-guy face," Rudd says, laughing. "You don't expect someone like me to call someone 'cunt.' You don't believe it. So it's more powerful. It says something about what I'm feeling. When we performed the play in London, the word didn't make much of an impact. The British use 'cunt' all the time. But when we took the play to New York, it became a big deal. I don't think there's a worse thing you can call a woman, and that's why the word is there."
LaBute has punched audiences' buttons before. His debut film, In the Company of Men, about a pair of male office workers who collaborate in deceiving a deaf female colleague, raised the ire of feminists. His follow-up film Your Friends & Neighbors also generated controversy for its hard-hitting look at male-female relationships.
Summer is a time for movie-made diversions, but The Shape of Things generates audience response no matter where it plays. It makes an impact, whether at a winter film festival or Memorial Day Weekend, and that's the best thing LaBute can hope for with his film.
If there are to be other summer movie shocks, it's safe to say they'll involve violence or gory effects. The Shape of Things might shock, but it accomplishes it through intellectual examinations of power relations and the experiences of life itself. There is no need for fantasy. Because when the words are right, you don't need fantasy to make an impact.
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