Your Friends & Neighbors (1998)
Country: US
Technical: DeLuxe/Super 35 100m
Director: Neil LaBute
Cast: Amy Brenneman, Aaron Eckhart, Catherine Keener, Nastassja Kinski, Jason Patric, Ben Stiller
Synopsis:
Thirty-something friends share sexual experiences and one of them embarks on an abortive affair with the wife of another while his own girlfriend leaves him for a female artist's assistant.
Review:
What could so easily be a Woody Allenesque ensemble piece, all humour tinged with bitter regret, is - due to its director's widescreen distancing technique and pessimistic standpoint - something totally different. The characters are either weak or unspeakably callous, but all bar one have the capacity to be hurt and this is enough to make them interesting; indeed rarely has a succession of brief dialogue exchanges been turned into so morbidly fascinating, brutally cynical a film. The lack of names, and other establishing techniques may jar on some, and others have found its claim to universal truth arrogant or posturing.
Country: US
Technical: DeLuxe/Super 35 100m
Director: Neil LaBute
Cast: Amy Brenneman, Aaron Eckhart, Catherine Keener, Nastassja Kinski, Jason Patric, Ben Stiller
Synopsis:
Thirty-something friends share sexual experiences and one of them embarks on an abortive affair with the wife of another while his own girlfriend leaves him for a female artist's assistant.
Review:
What could so easily be a Woody Allenesque ensemble piece, all humour tinged with bitter regret, is - due to its director's widescreen distancing technique and pessimistic standpoint - something totally different. The characters are either weak or unspeakably callous, but all bar one have the capacity to be hurt and this is enough to make them interesting; indeed rarely has a succession of brief dialogue exchanges been turned into so morbidly fascinating, brutally cynical a film. The lack of names, and other establishing techniques may jar on some, and others have found its claim to universal truth arrogant or posturing.
Country: US
Technical: DeLuxe/Super 35 100m
Director: Neil LaBute
Cast: Amy Brenneman, Aaron Eckhart, Catherine Keener, Nastassja Kinski, Jason Patric, Ben Stiller
Synopsis:
Thirty-something friends share sexual experiences and one of them embarks on an abortive affair with the wife of another while his own girlfriend leaves him for a female artist's assistant.
Review:
What could so easily be a Woody Allenesque ensemble piece, all humour tinged with bitter regret, is - due to its director's widescreen distancing technique and pessimistic standpoint - something totally different. The characters are either weak or unspeakably callous, but all bar one have the capacity to be hurt and this is enough to make them interesting; indeed rarely has a succession of brief dialogue exchanges been turned into so morbidly fascinating, brutally cynical a film. The lack of names, and other establishing techniques may jar on some, and others have found its claim to universal truth arrogant or posturing.