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Starring Ben Stiller, Amy Brenneman, et al. Released to DVD on February 23, 1999. Never before have I seen a film that I wished could be taking place on a stage instead. At least in that medium, I could have sent writer/director Neil LaBute a message by running up onto stage and beating the actors within a small metric system unit of death. Unfortunately, I was so offended and disturbed by LaBute's sexually depraved and graphic script that running up and hitting the actors was still my first instinct, much to the displeasure of the owners of the theater where I screened this movie.Your Friends and Neighbors, unlike LaBute's debut film In the Company of Men, doesn't really have a plot of any cohesive sorts. It is, more or less, a slice of life film about 6 yuppies living in New York and their most unusual and degrading visions of self and relationships. The film opens with Jason Patric sweating like a large man named Lars lifting tires on ESPN2, humping his bed, and recording his comments to listen to later, while he works out. Cut to Ben Stiller and the increasingly annoying Catherine Keener having sex. Stiller is carrying on a conversation like he was standing next to a water cooler, and Keener displa.html>spla.html>spla.html>spla.html>splaying the amount of emotion one might express at eating a overcooked fish dinner. Cut to Aaron Eckhart and Amy Brenneman attempting to have sex. Eckhart is having trouble rising to the occasion. And Your Friends and Neighbors continues from here with the characters sleeping with each other in a rather random, lurid love octagon. At the core of this movie is LaBute's dark, twisted, script that focuses on his increasing bizarre and depressing perspective of life and love in the '90's. LaBute shocked audiences and critics alike in '97 with In the Company of Men, the tale involving two men who set out to emotionally hurt and scar a vulnerable woman. However, while being disturbing in its own right, In the Company of Men was sickly enjoyable because its characters were cartoonish and unrealistic, like the pompously, inflated character of Bridget Gregory in The Last Seduction. Their thoughts were seemingly so one-minded and their actions so focused on attaining their goal that the on-screen action became entertainingly psychotic. Your Friends and Neighbors is a different situation though. Working with his set designer and location scouts, LaBute has created a world for his characters that is realistic to most viewers. The slightly run-down apartment, the early evening gym class in the upscale area of town, and the couple with a home in the suburbs, all are images with which most urbanites are familiar. And in this fashion, the characters have become 'real' peopleóthey are not the cartoons that Murtaugh and Riggs are in the Lethal Weapon series. Frankly, I cannot believe that characters as shown on screen in Your Friends and Neighbors actually exist in real life, hang out together, believe the things they do, and that I am related to them as another human being. For his sake, I hope that LaBute is either married or gay, because I don't see many relationships forming in the future; the females that watch his cinematic creations and thinking, "Wow, he just seems like so much fun to be around" will be few and far between. Your Friends and Neighbors went beyond making the viewers feel cheap and violated; LaBute has somehow created a film with such lecherous and sexually distorted characters that the audience members will need therapy if they choose to view this movie. All I've got to say is that these better not be MY friends and neighbors, or we're going to have some words.
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