The Shape of Things
*** (A must-see) Directed and written by Neil LaBute With Rachel Weisz, Paul Rudd, Frederick Weller, and Gretchen Mol.
LaBute’s previous film, Possession, offered two tender love stories, one in the past and one in the present, both framed by a love of literature. The Shape of Things–initially written as a play during a break in the production of Possession, its dialectical opposite in every respect–offers one brutal tale about art framed by two interlocking failed-love stories. In Possession literature figured largely as a mode of seduction; in this film art is viewed almost exclusively as an assault. The two lead characters–there are only four characters in all–meet in an art museum in the first scene and in an exhibition hall in the last, and both sites are perceived from the outset as arenas for frontal attacks. In the first, Evelyn (Rachel Weisz), an outspoken and rebellious graduate student in art, is preparing to spray paint the fig leaf a bluenose committee has added to a male nude statue, and Adam (Paul Rudd), a meek undergraduate in English who’s working part-time as a museum guard, halfheartedly tries to dissuade her while asking for a date. (The way these two characters dress remains important throughout, presenting us with clues we’re asked to read as cliches–her Mao button and later her Che Guevara T-shirt, his corduroy jacket and the sportier jacket that eventually replaces it–and helping to shape a contrast with the other two characters.)
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It’s to LaBute’s credit that he never keeps love and art entirely separate, even when he’s pretending to substitute one for the other. A key moment in Evelyn’s dispassionate, even icy, public presentation of her art project occurs when she speaks about Adam’s betrayal of her by kissing Jenny, and enough emotion creeps into her voice to suggest that she’s fighting back tears. She even reveals her suspicion that Adam and Jenny did more than just kiss–which makes us realize that maybe they did. Just because the scene between Adam and Jenny only shows them kissing doesn’t mean they didn’t have sex afterward.
