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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
A fascinatingly mean-spirited erotic comedy set in a realm of self-absorbed fantasy and overdetermined intergender misunderstanding.
It's refreshing to see a movie like this -- something that's edgy and entertaining, and doesn't try to appeal to 'the masses.'
Labute, again employing the same detached point-of-view he showed in his first film, charts his characters' moral declines mercilessly. Everyone ends up crawling from the wreckage, some more battered than others, but none unscathed.
The web of lies, failures and brutal revelations here is strong stuff, and it's the work of an original filmmaker who takes no prisoners.
All the performances are excellent, especially Patric, Stiller (in a particularly weaselly turn) and Brenneman as the film's most sympathetic character.
The film's star is LaBute, a genuine modern movie auteur who ventures behind the tantalizing blurbs on the covers of those trendy men's and women's magazines to find miserable, unhappy people.
Confuses a kind of juvenile titillation with insight and treats the ability to make audiences squirm as a pinnacle of film art.
LaBute is very good at kicking over rocks, and even better at examining what crawls out from under them.
LaBute writes conversations as though eavesdropping were his full-time occupation.
A scathing, brutally funny, and ultimately disturbing satire of sexual and social mores.
The derailment of their unhealthy emotions makes for one compulsively watchable train wreck.
The entire thing, from beginning to end, can be boiled down into a three word sentence: 'I hate people.'
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| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie | Date |
|---|---|---|
| 50% 50% | It's Complicated | 07/1 |
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