Your Friends & Neighbors

Savagely funny black comedy.

What keeps you in your seat is the acting. Keener, crisply and coolly playing against type, commands the screen. [24 August 1998, p. 58]

The horror of LaBute's articulate, self-deluded characters is that they're both sharply drawn and just vague enough that you can insert face here.

The acting and writing is a cut above the ordinary.

LaBute's dialogue reminds us that, along with that of such others as Hal Hartley and Jim Jarmusch and Whit Stillman, the sheer writing, these days, of some American films is remarkably fine. LaBute has cast his film to match, with people who can handle his dialogue neatly. [31 August 1998, p. 28]

It once again confuses a kind of juvenile titillation with insight and treats the ability to make audiences squirm as a pinnacle of film art.

This is an embarrassing film. It's a sex comedy that sets itself up as a satire of middle-class mores, except there's no truth behind any of its observations. LaBute tries to be shocking and manages only to be shockingly puerile -- tasteless in a high-school-boyish sort of way.