Neil LaBute Movies
Combining intriguing moral and ethical metaphors with dark portraits of the underside of American life, writer and director Neil LaBute became one of the most controversial new filmmakers to emerge in the 1990s, offering a perspective that was intelligent and possessing a brutally clear focus.Neil LaBute was born in Detroit, MI, on March 19, 1963. When LaBute was a child, his family moved to Spokane, WA, and during his high school days in the Pacific Northwest he developed a keen interest in both writing and theater. After graduating from high school, LaBute received a scholarship from Brigham Young University, a college in Provo, UT, which was founded and is still overseen by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known to many as the Mormons. LaBute received a degree in Theater and Film at B.Y.U., and converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while a student. LaBute went on to graduate work at the University of Kansas and New York University, and participated in a writing workshop at London's Royal Court Theatre, as well as attending the Sundance Institute's Playwright's Lab at N.Y.U. LaBute first began writing and staging original plays while studying at Brigham Young, and in 1993 he returned to B.Y.U. to premier his drama In the Company of Men, a startling and controversial tale of two businessmen who conspire to emotionally destroy a receptionist at their firm. In 1997, LaBute decided to adapt In the Company of Men for the screen, and on a budget of only 25,000 dollars, shot the film in two weeks in and around Fort Wayne, IN, with a friend from his college days, Aaron Eckhart, who played Chad, one of the businessmen. In the Company of Men was accepted at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival, and to LaBute's surprise, it won the Filmmaker's Trophy as Best Dramatic Feature; the film was picked up for national distribution, and went on to gross 2.9 million dollars.
Following the success with In the Company of Men, LaBute next wrote and directed Your Friends & Neighbors, an examination of the sexual and emotional failings and frailties of three couples; it was also based on one of LaBute's earlier plays, entitled Lepers. Shot on a relatively lavish five-million-dollar budget, Your Friends & Neighbors, while not as widely acclaimed as In the Company of Men, received solid reviews and confirmed his status as an exciting new talent in filmmaking. LaBute was also one of several new filmmakers chronicled in the documentary Independent's Day. In 2000, LaBute refocused his attentions to the stage with Bash: Latterday Plays, a collection of three short plays (which, like his two films, was adapted from a previous LaBute stage production entitled Bash: A Gaggle of Saints). Bash, starring Calista Flockhart and Paul Rudd, proved to be a hot ticket in its New York off-Broadway run, and a performance of the play was taped for later broadcast on the Showtime premium cable network. That same year, LaBute released his third feature film, which was also his first film which he did not write -- Nurse Betty, a dark but sweet comedy about a slightly touched woman chasing her dreams after the murder of her husband, while being followed by the gunmen who did in her spouse. Nurse Betty proved LaBute could work with a lighter touch, and became a respectable box-office success. LaBute's next project, Possession (2002), was another departure for him, in that it focused mainly on romance and elements of period drama. After that, he returned to the themes of his earlier films, writing and directing The Shape of Things (2003), which he had originated as a play in London.
In perhaps his most substantial departure to date, LaBute confounded fans and critics by taking a stab at the horror genre by serving as writer and director of the 2006 remake, The Wicker Man. Though many of LaBute's previous efforts could well have been considered horror films in the sense that they portrayed man as the ultimate emotional monster, The Wicker Man marked the first time the director had entered the genre proper and, considering the longstanding cult-status of the original, expectations among genre enthusiasts were fairly high for the dramatic frightener.
When not busy with his work, LaBute lives with his wife and two children in Fort Wayne, IN. ~ Rovi
- 2013
Misanthropic indie auteur Neil LaBute wades the treacherous waters of male/female relationships yet again with this story of a man named Fred (Stanley Tucci) who reappears in the life of young and beautiful Velvet (Alice Eve) unannounced following a four-year absence. Subsequently, the more Fred reveals about his reasons for leaving in the first place, the greater the tensions between he and Velvet grow until exploding into a thermonuclear game of he said/she said. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Four friends come together for a reunion that leads them down a self-destructive path in this drama. Jonathan (Rob Lowe), Richard (Thomas Jane), Ron (Jeremy Piven), and Tim (Christian McKay) are four men in their mid-forties who have known each other since they went to college together. Each year, they reunite for a vacation, renting a beach house in California and engaging in as much drug- and alcohol-fueled carousing as they can tolerate. While they seem happy on the surface, in truth all four are deeply troubled; Jonathan is a doctor whose specialty is writing prescriptions for the right price, Richard is a teacher still mourning his unsuccessful career as a novelist, Ron is a commodities trader in trouble with the law, and Tim feels lost and purposeless in his life. Over the course of their holiday, the friends will be touched by an unexpected tragedy and shocked by revelations that change the way they view one another. Also starring Carla Gugino and Sasha Grey, I Melt With You was an official selection at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Thomas Jane, Jeremy Piven, (more)
Frank Oz's 2007 black comedy Death at a Funeral is given the remake treatment with an urban spin in this Chris Rock-produced production. When a dysfunctional clan reuintes to mourn the passing of the family patriarch, a respectful funeral quickly turns into an all-out fiasco marked by bitter resentment, blackmail attempts, and scandalous revelations. Dean Craig penned the script for director Neil LaBute (The Wicker Man), with Martin Lawrence, Tracy Morgan, and Danny Glover co-starring. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi
- Starring:
- Keith David, Loretta Devine, (more)
- 2009
Taylor Hackford steps into the remake arena with this redo of François Truffaut's 1981 film The Woman Next Door, with Neil LaBute providing the adaptation that centers on two people whose sexual past comes to haunt them when they find themselves living next to each other and forced to face their unresolved relationship without alerting their unassuming spouses. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
Untrusting of women following a bitter breakup on the eve of Thanksgiving, a misanthropic construction worker finds himself inexplicably attracted to his younger brother's new girlfriend. Caleb Sinclaire (Adam Scott) has just been through a particularly difficult breakup. Isolated, yet strangely contented with his newly single status, Caleb wears his distain toward women as a macho badge of honor. However, when Thanksgiving weekend arrives and Caleb meets his younger brother Peter's (Alex Frost) new girlfriend, Emma (Brittany Snow), his initial attempts to convince his sibling that the relationship will yield nothing but pain are quickly sidelined by his growing attraction to the beautiful girl. His vulnerability gradually bubbling to the surface over the course of the holiday weekend, Caleb is soon forced to confront the feelings that he's been trying so desperately to conceal beneath a swaggering facade. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Brittany Snow, Adam Scott, (more)
An interracial couple moves into their California dream home, only to find themselves the target of their volatile next-door neighbor -- a racist LAPD officer -- in this tightly wound thriller starring Samuel L. Jackson and Kerry Washington. Newlyweds Chris and Lisa seem like they have the perfect marriage and now, with their new home in the exclusive community Lakeview Terrace, the perfect life as well, but things soon turn ugly in the posh neighborhood when they begin to receive threats from their neighbor Abel, a middle-aged LAPD officer who has obvious objections to the couple's interracial marriage. What starts as an attitude problem soon morphs into full-on harassment, and before long the couple finds that their worries go far beyond their property values -- or the encroaching California wildfire burning in view of their community -- as they begin to fear for their lives. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Wilson, (more)
A young child has gone missing and it's up to a haunted but determined policeman to travel to the remote island community where she was last seen and solve the lingering mystery of her disappearance in director Neil LaBute's updated reworking of Anthony Shaffer's 1973 cult horror classic. Upon receiving a letter from his one-time fiancée, Willow (Kate Beahan), imploring him to search for her missing daughter on the secluded island of Summersisle, Policeman Edward Malus (Nicolas Cage) quickly makes his way to the island to locate the girl and seek an answer as to why Willow suddenly and inexplicably disappeared shortly before their wedding date. Once there, Malus is troubled to discover that although there are traces of the child to be found in such locations as the local schoolhouse, the residents of Summersisle seem reluctant to offer any specific details as to the girl's apparent death. His investigation effectively stalled by the highly secretive Wiccan community, Sheriff Malus soon discovers that there are still some cultures that have their own unique beliefs about humankind's relationship with Mother Earth, and refuse to adapt to the rules of modern society. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Nicolas Cage, Ellen Burstyn, (more)
In the late '60s, American culture experienced a period of change as the youth movement challenged conventional attitudes about politics, sex, drugs, and gender issues, while the advancement of the Vietnam War found many citizens questioning the actions and wisdom of their government for the first time. As American attitudes continued to evolve, so did the American film industry; as costly big-budget blockbusters nearly brought the major studios to the brink of collapse, smaller and more personal films such as Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider, and Five Easy Pieces demonstrated there was a ready audience for bold and challenging entertainment. As the '60s faded into the 1970s, American cinema moved into an exciting period of creativity and stylistic innovation, which led to such landmark films as The Godfather, MASH, The Last Picture Show, Shampoo, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Chinatown, and Taxi Driver, and new freedom for directors and screenwriters. Ironically, however, it was another pair of big-budget blockbusters directed by students of the new wave of filmmaking -- Jaws and Star Wars -- which brought the studios back to power and put an end to Hollywood's flirtation with offbeat creativity. A Decade Under the Influence is a documentary which explores the rise and fall of new American filmmaking in the 1970s, and features interviews with many of the key directors, screenwriters, and actors whose work typified the movement, including Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, Roger Corman, Dennis Hopper, Jon Voight, and Julie Christie. A Decade Under the Influence received its world premier at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, and an expanded version of the film was later shown on the premium cable outlet The Independent Film Channel; the documentary was the final work of co-director Ted Demme, who died shortly before the film was completed. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, (more)
After a detour into lighter and more compassionate fare with Nurse Betty and Possession, Neil LaBute returns to the themes of his earlier films with this dark and corrosive look at male-female relationships. Adam (Paul Rudd) is a chubby, bespectacled nebbish of a college student who makes money in his spare time as a security guard at the university's art museum. One evening at work, Adam spies another student preparing to deface a statue -- Evelyn (Rachel Weisz), a beautiful art major who is offended by a fig leaf that's been used to "censor" a statue of a nude male, and is prepared to replace the disguised member with spray paint. Adam can't quite bring himself to kick Evelyn out of the museum, and she responds by giving him her phone number. Adam and Evelyn begin dating, and as she challenges his ideas about art and morality, she begins remaking Adam into the sort of boyfriend she'd prefer. Under her influence, Adam loses weight, gets contact lenses, changes his hairstyle, starts dressing better, and assumes a cooler and more confident personality. Adam's pal Philip (Frederick Weller) notices the changes in his friend and isn't happy with the way Evelyn has been molding Adam to her specifications. Adam and Evelyn have dinner one night with Philip and his fiancée, Jenny (Gretchen Mol), and before long Philip and Evelyn are at each other's throats as Adam and Jenny cower along the sidelines. The tensions between Philip and Evelyn exacerbate uneasiness between Jenny and her husband to be, while at the same time, Jenny and Adam begin to recognize a mutual attraction that's long lurked beneath the surface. The Shape of Things was adapted by LaBute from his stage drama of the same name; a selection of songs by Elvis Costello comprise the soundtrack. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Gretchen Mol, Paul Rudd, (more)
In Neil LaBute's film adaptation of A.S. Byatt's Booker Prize-winning 1990 novel, Aaron Eckhart (who has starred in all of LaBute's films) plays Roland Michell, an American academic researcher, working in London, who discovers some important letters written by a famous Victorian poet, Randolph Henry Ash (Jeremy Northam [Gosford Park]). Ash was presumed to have been totally devoted to his wife, but Roland finds letters written to another unnamed woman, and soon determines that the intended recipient was another, less well-known poet, Christabel LaMotte (Jennifer Ehle of Sunshine). Roland contacts Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow), an expert on LaMotte's life and work, who tells him that LaMotte couldn't have had an affair with Ash because she lived most of her life with a female companion, Blanche Glover (Lena Headey), in what was apparently a romantic relationship. Despite Maud's skepticism, the two begin to investigate, and uncover a wealth of information about the affair between the two poets. Period scenes of the illicit relationship between Ash and LaMotte are intercut with the contemporary investigation of the two academics. Roland and Maud initially fight their attraction to each other, but as the pair find more evidence of the historical and tragic romance, they find themselves overcoming their own resistance to romantic entanglement. Possession was kicked around as a film project for a long time before LaBute became interested. Director Sydney Pollack originally was slated to film a screenplay by David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly), who receives a credit on the finished film. When LaBute took over the project years later, he reworked the screenplay with Laura Jones (The Portrait of a Lady). ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi
- Starring:
- Aaron Eckhart, Gwyneth Paltrow, (more)
- 2000
Neil LaBute's Bash: Latter Day Plays is a film of his theatrical presentation of three one-act plays. As in much of LaBute's work, the darker side of human nature is explored. "Gaggle of Saints" features a couple (Paul Rudd of Clueless and Calista Flockhart of Ally McBeal), students at Boston College, who take turns describing a road trip to New York City for a big "bash" at the Plaza Hotel. While the girls go off to bed after the party, the boys roam Central Park, and end up having a violent encounter. In the second play, "Medea Redux," Flockhart plays a young woman who describes an affair she had with her teacher when she was thirteen, and the terrible vengeance she took on him after he abandoned her. The third play, "Iphigenia in Orem" stars Ron Eldard (Sleepers) as a traveling salesman, who regales an unseen confidant with a tragic and increasingly disturbing tale of his family life. Most of the characters are Mormons (as is LaBute himself). The film originally aired on Showtime in 2000. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi
- Starring:
- Paul Rudd, Calista Flockhart, (more)
After two acclaimed independent films in which he took a troubling look at male/female relations, director Neil LaBute moves on to less controversial ground in this dark comedy. Betty Sizemore (Renee Zellweger) is a woman from Kansas City who waits tables at a diner and is married to an insensitive thug named Del (Aaron Eckhart). One of Betty's few pleasures in life is the soap opera A Reason to Love. Her favorite character is handsome Dr. David Ravell, played by George McCord (Greg Kinnear). One night, Del gets involved in a drug deal with a pair of gangsters, Charlie (Morgan Freeman) and his sidekick Wesley (Chris Rock). Del's thoughtless racial slurs lead to an arguement, and the short-tempered Wesley attacks him; Charlie is forced to kill Del, as Betty watches. Dazed and in shock, Betty hops into her car, deciding that the time is right for a date with destiny. Betty tracks down George McCord, and soon the soap's producer Lyla (Allison Janney) is considering Betty for a part on A Reason to Love, not realizing that Betty doesn't want to play Dr. Ravell's nurse and fiance, she wants to be her. Betty, meanwhile, has no idea that the drugs that Del was trying to sell are still in her car, and that Charlie and Wesley are hot on her trail, determined to get the dope and silence her once and for all. Nurse Betty also features Kathleen Wilhoite, Crispin Glover, and Pruitt Taylor Vince. The film was shown in competition at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the prize for Best Screenplay. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Renée Zellweger, Morgan Freeman, (more)
The Sundance Channel produced this guided tour through the world of independent films and filmmakers, tossing out the statistic that the movement has escalated from some 50 films in 1985, to 800 in 1997. Interview segments include Sundance fest director Geoffrey Gilmore, fest programmer Bob Hawk, writer-director Greg Mottola, producer Steven Soderbergh, critic Roger Ebert, and directors Sydney Pollack and Kevin Smith. Filmed in L.A., N.Y., and Park City, Utah, this hour-long documentary premiered on the Sundance Channel on January 15, 1997, the opening night of the 1997 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi
For the follow-up to In the Company of Men, the misogyny-on-parade debut that became an out of nowhere indie hit, auteur Neil LaBute wrote and directed a piece that gives more equal representation to the shortcomings of both genders than his earlier film. Three men stand on one side: Cary (Jason Patrick), a womanizing doctor who rehearses make-out lines and keeps his body almost grotesquely ripped; Jerry (Ben Stiller), a self-obsessed theater instructor who chews over every emotion like a morsel of dessert; and Barry (Aaron Eckhart), a man grown soft in his marriage to a woman who can't satisfy him sexually as well as he can himself. On the other side we have three equally well-defined women: Terri (Catherine Keener), a writer/editor whose prefers to keep words out of the bedroom, much to the chagrin of live-in beau Jerry; Mary (Amy Brenneman), a freelance writer whose attempts to find her own sexual fulfillment with both husband Barry and paramour Jerry meet with a similar lack of success; and Cheri (Nastassja Kinski), an art assistant who meets most of the other characters one by one at a gallery but directs her sylph-like affections in an unexpected direction. The lies, double-crosses, and confrontations between these characters resolve into a sinisterly comic indictment of the very idea of romantic fulfillment. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi
- Starring:
- Amy Brenneman, Aaron Eckhart, (more)
Two frustrated young executives vent their pent-up rage via a childish prank and end up paying a price in this psychological black comedy, the feature-film debut of writer-director Neil LaBute. Former college buddies Chad (Aaron Eckhart) and Howard (Matt Malloy) are in their early 30s and work in the same company. One day the two encounter each other in the men's executive washroom and begin expressing their mutual frustration regarding their lack of rapid advancement at work and their most recent bad luck with women. In hopes of gaining revenge against the fairer sex and bolstering their battered egos, the two hatch a nasty scheme to be enacted over an upcoming six-week-long business trip: Find a vulnerable young woman to court, slather with affection, and then callously dump. They choose a lovely, hearing-impaired typist named Christine (Stacey Edwards), a woman who hasn't dated in many years. Not realizing that she is about to be the metaphorical mouse between a pair of hungry cats, she laps up the sudden attention, but in no time it becomes apparent that Chad is the man she prefers. When Howard discovers this, it creates escalating tension between the two men who begin playing more psychological games, not only with hapless Christine, but also with each other. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Aaron Eckhart, Matt Malloy, (more)
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