Your Friends & Neighbors

"Your Friends and Neighbors" (1998) is the second film by director/writer Neil LaBute and it tells the story of three couples and their complicated friendships and relationships. I've seen it more than once during the last couple of days -... Full review

"It's me? Isn't it?" was said a lot by the characters in this film, and all but one of them decided it is them.I gave this film 10 stars - I thought it was a very interesting tale of these... Full review

This is basically the filmed dissatisfaction of upper-class yuppie life. These are people who have everything but seem to live in a swamp of self loathing and hateful arrogance and selfishness. Their tart, affective interplay is like watching a game... Full review

One of the most fascinating moments in this film is the scene in which the three men each tell about their most exciting sexual liaison. Jason Patric's anecdote is amazing, both as written and as acted. A virulent misogynist with... Full review

Neil LaBute is one of my favorite filmmakers of recent years, and this film is one of his best. He creates distinctive characters, some selfish, some self-loathing, and lets them develop in sometimes unexpected ways. The writing is satirical at... Full review

Jerry lives with Terri but Terri is irritated by everything he does especially the way he talks during sex and needs to analyse everything. They are friends with Barry and Mary who have sexual problems as Mary is rarely roused... Full review

YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS / (1998) ***1/2 (out of four)"Your Friends & Neighbors" is not really a film about sex, although every single scene, in some form or another, depicts its characters' obsessions with sexuality. The sex is not the... Full review

Good movies do not have to be about pleasant subjects, many excellent films are about depressing subjects or have sad endings. Neil Labute's first two movies are definitely not happy, and delve deeply into the dark side of modern human... Full review

"Your Friends and Neighbors" is a movie about relationships, sex and the effects of both. This is pointed out clearly in the beginning when Jerry (Ben Stiller) uses direct address as an introduction. By having Jerry (Stiller) speak directly to... Full review

There was one thing I liked about this movie. There's a scene where a character is looking at a piece of art work and an art gallery employee walks up. They make small talk, and the scene ends. This scene... Full review

and many more opportunities for those painfully funny (or just painful) LaBute moments in which characters are explicitly candid without really saying anything.....The actors are fine across the board, but the stand-out is Catherine Keener, whose Terri is snappish.... ... Full Review

Your Friends and Neighbors triumphantly flips the bird to the triumph of the human spirit as LaBute focuses on three guys -- rat bastards to a man -- with intimacy issues that they chew over in steam rooms, offices and restaurants. Love or hate his films, LaBute is one of the most challenging filmmakers to emerge in years. ... Full Review

Which is essentially what "Your Friends & Neighbors" is about, and therein lies its weakness.....While "Men" was a taut, relentless morality tale, "Friends & Neighbors" seems surprisingly listless.....Its characters are either inhumane, self-absorbed, insipid, or all of the above.....every story can essentially be boiled down to....The harrowing story he tells is so horrifying--not only in its contents.... ... Full Review

However, the movie does contain some vividly realistic simulated sex and graphically vulgar, in-depth sexual discussions that could chase a lot of audience-members away. All the performances are excellent, especially Patric, Stiller (in a particularly weaselly turn) and Brenneman as the film's most sympathetic character. ... Full Review

Although predicated largely on such one-liners, Your Friends & Neighbors develops a narrative when, with Jerry and Terri enjoying a somewhat strained dinner chez Barry and Mary, Jerry takes advantage of an opportune moment to sexually proposition his hostess. ... Full Review

First they knock our NHS, then they mess with our film posters; truly, there are days when it's hard not to believe that America hasn't launched a stealth war against us, and that by this time next year we'll have... ... Full Article

Bad date-movie alert: This poison-pen letter to modern lovers fulfills the promise of writer-director Neil LaBute's controversial debut, In the Company of Men, which is to say the fights should start well before the end credits roll. ... Full Article

Here's a sorta unusual list, counting down the 20 best feel-bad movies of the last 20 years . These are different from standard tearjerkers, movies that go for the melodramatic in order to elicit a cathartic sniffle; rather, these are... ... Full Article

One of my favorite films of last year was IN THE COMPANY OF MEN, a very very sick and twisted black comedy that left some people so shaken that they became physically ill. It was about the destruction of a... ... Full Article

This film will delight some and shock others, but it won't leave anyone indifferent. It's got both the depraved humor of "There's Something About Mary" and the sexual dysfunction of "Your Friends & Neighbors". ... Full Article

Some of the stuff that is written (and I hope not experienced) and put into this movie is just really fucked up. Mr. LaBute must be a complete freako, or can at least realate to one. ... Full Article