Other Titles • Your Friends & Neighbors • Friends and Neighbors (1997)
Synopses for Your Friends & Neighbors (1998)
1.
Theater instructor Jerry starts an affair with Mary, and that starts a chain of events that affect their respective partners Terri and Barry and other characters in the film, creating a web of relationships.
(46 votes)
2.
A Modern Immorality Tale
Three couples. A dozen relationships. A million problems.
One of the most talked about comedies of the season, Your Friends & Neighbors is the story of six people who can't seem to stay out of each others' lives or each others' bedrooms. Six of today's hottest young celebrities star in a film critics raved about. If you enjoy passion, lust, sexuality, and light-hearted humor, this is your circle of friends.
(45 votes)
3.
In the age of ever-increasing crassness on screen (see the Farrelly brothers' comedies), there are some filmmakers who can make serious commentary instead of just throwaway gags. Neil LaBute's second feature is a corkscrew comedy of savage, bitter people who can't find happiness in many a thing, let alone sex. The film is not as tight or commanding as his first feature, the black-hearted In the Company of Men, but he gives six nameless characters six juicy parts with plenty to talk about. The emotional punch is devastating for those trying to find love and happiness on celluloid. One wife and husband (Amy Brenneman, Men's Aaron Eckhart) are nice people, living in a dream home, who can't connect sexually. Drama teacher Ben Stiller and live-in girlfriend Catherine Keener may just work out if, well, he didn't talk all the time. Stiller confesses his love for best friend Eckhart's wife; Keener starts an affair with artist assistant Nastassja Kinski. Then there's Jason Patric (who also produced) as a calculating, misogynistic doctor who has not had a peer on film or theater since David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago (which took a different film form as About Last Night...). Manipulative and forward, he's the white-hot core to LaBute's fire and has the monologue of the year to boot. LaBute's callous films aren't for everybody, but there is an art and clear-headedness to his work that most American independent filmmakers can't create on screen. Note: the six characters speak the only lines in the film, although through careful editing it never seems this way. --Doug Thomas
(43 votes)
4.
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.
(42 votes)
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