The Michigan Review

Vicious Friends Amuses

by Matthew Buckley

Most of us are not action heroes. While occasional physical exertion wont leave us exhausted or devastated, we simply dont do much fighting, bullet-dodging, car-chasing, or most of the other behaviors that make action movies so fun to watch. Most of the time, the pivotal moments in our day emerge in conversations with others. Thats right, just talking.

Not many action movies seem to understand this. Conversations in most action movies really only serve to push the plot along or create tag lines for the movies preview (think “Hasta la vista, baby”). There are exceptions, of course, but its a rare action flick where it seems that real thought has been put into the dialogue.

No doubt the history of film has some amazing examples of directors who were extremely dialogue-driven, so to speak. Woody Allen, for example, seems to epitomize this. His films invariably focus on conversations. A pair of new writer / directors have emerged recently who seem almost the devil progeny of Woody Allen: Whit Stillman and Neil LaBute.

Stillman, whose credits include Metropolitan and the recent The Last Days of Disco, excels at focusing on people who take themselves way too seriously. However, though you might feel the characters are a bit pathetic, you care about them, and the films are compelling. Neil LaBute’s debut film, In the Company of Men, took a focus on conversations and mixed it with a far more pessimistic view of human nature, making it one of last years funniest, and scariest, films. His latest film, Your Friends and Neighbors, continues the trend.

Two New York couples are having difficulties. The first, played by Ben Stiller (Zero Effect, There’s Something About Mary) and Catherine Keener (Out of Sight), have distinctly different opinions about talking and sex. Stiller mixes the two, but Keener can’t stand it. (“F—king is f—king,” she notes, and she doesn’t want to chat). The second, Amy Brenneman (Daylight, NYPD Blue) and Aaron Eckhart (In the Company of Men), are also sexually troubled. She wants someone to hold her, while he considers himself the best lay he’s ever had (This could be the only mainstream movie in which the most explicit sex scene is one of masturbation).

Frustrated with their partners, members of each couple stray. Keener’s character finds Nastassja Kinski (One Night Stand), a lesbian artist’s assistant who can keep quiet during lovemaking. Stiller and Brenneman attempt to have a fling, but emotional and physical hang-ups get in the way. Much as many comedies have a straight man, Eckhart here is the honest man. He’s naîve in a world of deceitful people, and he just doesn’t get the picture (I’d use the characters’ names, but the movie doesn’t. First names are never used, and the final credits list their names with a series of generic rhyming names).

In the Company of Men was about two men who, tired of women’s antics, both decide to date a deaf woman for six weeks and then dump her. In that movie, Eckhart was essentially a sociopath. While he plays an opposite character in this film, Jason Patric (Sleepers, Speed 2) serves almost as well. A running motif in the film is a question about one’s best sex, ever. In response, Patric waxes eloquent about his anal rape of a high school classmate.

If this sounds like a disgusting scene, it is. Stillman’s films are essentially light-hearted, and Allen’s comedies are fairly warm, as well. LaBute lets his humor shine, by having his characters say horrible things, and mean them. There is no one to respect in this film; nobody to care for. These people are perfectly recognizable (everyone has a few friends like them), and perfectly chilling in their attitudes towards each other.

LaBute has a skillful way of making conversation seem almost violent. When we are with people everyday, we know their idiosyncrasies and their weak spots—those phrases that they absolutely hate. In this film, the characters know each other that way, and more often than not they aim for the jugular. Even more interesting is the fact that (to my recollection), there is no violent contact between any of the characters. The most menacing confrontation takes place in a congested bookstore. Patric slowly works his way into Keener’s face, utters a few choice words, and exits. I felt that this ostensibly non-violent scene carries as much punch as anything you’ve seen in the Diehard franchise.

Yet, while being so dark, Your Friends is a very funny film. While we don’t like the characters, we can see parts of us in them. All of us have had moments where we want to blast our enemies away with some rhetorical flourish. Common decency prevents us from doing so; its what separates us from the characters here. MR

This article was published in the 16 September 1998 edition of The Michigan Review (Volume 17, Number 1).
For questions or comments, see the Contact Information page.