For anybody who has seen In the "Company of Men", they will soon find out that Neil LaBute returns back to similar form with his new film "The Shape of Things". And for those who were entertained by the savage battle of the sexes on display in the earlier movie will be similarly enthralled with this new film.  LaBute is so good at creating interesting characters (even though you may hate some of them) and his quick, biting writing can only make one think of David Mamet.

      The story unfolds as we meet Adam who is a nerdy college student working part-time in a museum.  He discovers a girl near an almost nude statue and who has stepped across the ropes which are meant to keep people away from the art.  Adam tries to persuade the girl to leave when he finds out that her intentions is to spray paint the statue because she finds something about it to be not an honest piece of art.  Well, it turns out this girl, Evelyn, is an art student, and sure enough she and Adam takes a liking to each other and begin dating.

      We soon are introduced to Adam's roommate Phillip and his fiancée Jenny.  Phillip is a real obnoxious jerk and Jenny is a sweet girl who wants Phillip to change but apparently will accept him as he is anyway.  As the story unfolds, Evelyn decides to change things about Adam at about every turn.  For his improvement, she has him change his hair style, lose weight, wear different clothes, and even get a nose job.  Adam willfully goes along with all these suggestions because his is obviously slowly falling in love with this wild and creative Evelyn.  Then conflicts appear between all four friends and lovers which threatens both their friendships and the romance between both couples.  At this stage, I will stop talking about the plotline of the story in order to not give anything away.  Suffice to say, the film takes a detour from heaven to hell.

      There are lots of themes being tackled in this film.  From the situations where lovers try to change each other to meet their expectations of what they want their partner to be, to the themes of manipulation, distrust and humiliation that often goes on in relationships.  At first, I was disappointed in the story because it appeared to be an overly sweet story of opposites who are attracted to each other.  Boy, was I ever wrong!  The story gets more intriguing as it goes along and the final third act will knock you off your seat.  LaBute pulls no punches here as cruelty and manipulation over-powers the excitement of romance between young lovers.  The story quickly becomes a fascinating battle of the sexes at the expense of a sweet love story between college students.

      As I mentioned earlier, LaBute displays his great writing in this film.  The dialogue is crisp and can quickly turn from being funny to being dead serious and biting.  I've read where all four actors in this film had performed on stage playing the same characters as this was a play first.  At times, the way they say their dialogue appears to be from the stage rather than being totally real.  And I found that the character Phillip was a bit too obnoxious.  But these are minor quibbles with this film as I found it to be most engrossing, especially after the first third of the movie.

      All the actors give very good performances all around.  Paul Rudd and Rachel Weisz are given most of the screen time and they are nothing short of marvelous.  Seems I've seen Weisz in many different movies lately and she continues to impress with each and every role.  I don't recall seeing Rudd before but just based on this performance alone, I look for him to be on the screen often in the future.

      Anybody who goes see this movie and expects to be entertained by your run of the mill romantic comedy will be easily shocked by the turn of events of the story.  This is not your typical love story with a fairy tale ending.  If you have seen some of LaBute's earlier films, you will probably know to expect something dangerous and much more original than the typical movie about college sweethearts.  The final act of this film just blew me away.