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Your Friends & Neighbors (1998)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:55
Fresh:42
Rotten:13
Average Rating:7/10
Consensus: This dark comedy is hilarious and provocative.
Synopsis: Neil LaBute's second film, YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS, is a dark comedy of manners that follows two unhappy couples and their single friends through a series of emotional and physical entanglements.... Neil LaBute's second film, YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS, is a dark comedy of manners that follows two unhappy couples and their single friends through a series of emotional and physical entanglements. Barry (Aaron Eckhart) and Mary (Amy Brenneman) are a married couple plagued by sexual frustration. Their friend Jerry (Ben Stiller), a theater professor, lives with his girlfriend, Terri (Catherine Keener), who's sick of his endless bedroom banter. Added to the fold are Cary (Jason Patric), a narcissistic, womanizing doctor, and Cheri (Nastassja Kinski), a free-spirited gallery assistant. While Jerry hopes to have an affair with Mary, Terri strikes up a relationship with Cheri, leading to a host of humorously painful conflicts. Cleverly framed by scenes in which each character examines the same painting in Cheri's gallery, the film presents an unflinchingly harsh look at relationships. More than anything else, it pinpoints--with hilarious effect--the human inability to communicate. Perfectly cast and expertly acted, YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS furthers LaBute's reputation as a challengingly original filmmaker. [More]
Starring: Ben Stiller, Amy Brenneman, Jason Patric, Catherine Keener
Starring: Ben Stiller, Amy Brenneman, Jason Patric, Catherine Keener, Nastassja Kinski, Aaron Eckhart
Director: Neil LaBute
Director: Neil LaBute
Reviews for Your Friends & Neighbors
LaBute writes conversations as though eavesdropping were his full-time occupation.
LaBute's Your Friends and Neighbors is to In the Company of Men as Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction was to Reservoir Dogs.
LaBute's characters are just cold, pretty figures striking art film poses while spouting corrosive but predictably theatrical dialogues.
The mood is often more coarse, crude, and nasty than needed to make [LaBute's] cautionary points and also by that 'distancing effect,' which diminishes whatever feelings of empathy or sympathy the story might otherwise inspire in its audience.
If you can stand to watch Your Friends & Neighbors, you won't forget it.
YFAN is graphic without showing anything, incredible yet credible, engaging and morbidly fascinating.
The entire thing, from beginning to end, can be boiled down into a three word sentence: 'I hate people.'
It's both a daring composition and a repelling look at gender warfare.
LaBute is one of our most fearless moviemakers and pop-culture commentators.
All the performances are excellent, especially Patric, Stiller (in a particularly weaselly turn) and Brenneman as the film's most sympathetic character.
Latest News for Your Friends & Neighbors
August 31, 2006:
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August 30, 2006:
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