The Shape of Things

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DVD cover

The Shape of Things
Movie poster
Directed by	Neil LaBute
Produced by	Neil LaBute
Written by	Neil LaBute
Starring	Paul Rudd Rachel Weisz Gretchen Mol Fred Weller
Music by	Elvis Costello
Cinematography	James L. Carter
Editing by	Joel Plotch
Release date(s)	18 January 2003 Sundance Film Festival
Running time	96 min.
Country	USA / France / UK
Language	English
Budget	$4,000,000
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IMDb profile

The Shape of Things is a play by American author and film director Neil LaBute and a 2003 American movie. It premièred at the Almeida Theatre, London in 2001 with Paul Rudd as Adam, Rachel Weisz as Evelyn, Gretchen Mol as Jenny and Fred Weller as Phillip. The play was directed by LaBute himself. According to the author's instructions, it is to be performed without an interval or a curtain call.

The play has been reprised several times with new casts since its original premiere, most recently under the direction of Brian Rhinehart at the Bernie West Theater in New York City.

Central themes in The Shape of Things are questions on the nature of art, psychopathy and intimacy, explorations of love and people's willingness to do things for love. It is set in a small university town in the American Midwest and centers on the lives of four young students who become emotionally and romantically involved with each other.

[edit] Plot

When Adam, an English Literature major at Clarkson, a fictitious Midwestern college, meets Evelyn, an attractive graduate art student, at the local museum where he works, his life takes an unexpected turn. Never having had success with women, he is flattered when Evelyn shows an interest in him and, at Evelyn's suggestion, begins regular exercise regiment, eats healthier foods, and purchases contact lenses. These initial changes regarding Adam's physical appearance are well-received by Adam's friend Phillip and erstwhile love interest Jenny. Later however, Evelyn cajoles Adam into undergoing plastic surgery and succeeds in persuading him to cut himself off from Phillip and Jenny.

In the penultimate scene Adam learns that he has been part of Evelyn's MFA thesis project, a topic often touched on in conversation throughout the film but never fully explained. Evelyn relates that she had been instructed to "change the world" by her graduate adviser, but that she has chosen to change "someone's world", her academic work ultimately consisting of "sculpting" Adam into a more attractive human being. She presents Adam before an audience of students and faculty as her creation. Accordingly, none of the feelings she has shown him throughout the film are genuine; at no stage in their "relationship" does she fall in love with him; her videotaping of their lovemaking is just a part of the project's documentation. In fact, she announces before a live audience at her gallery opening that she is not going to marry him and the engagement ring he offers her is simply one of the exhibits of her art installation, albeit the "capper to my time at Clarkson."

Publicly humiliated and devastated, Adam confronts Evelyn, demanding an explanation for her actions. She responds by saying that he should in fact be grateful to her, claiming that, objectively speaking, she has been a positive influence on his life, making him a more attractive and interesting person in the eyes of society.

In the final moments of the film, Adam stands alone, surrounded by the remnants of his life before Evelyn. Moving to a camcorder, he watches a section of a tape recorded earlier in the film, a moment in which Evelyn had whispered in his ear what she described as the one "true" thing of their relationship. The film ends as Adam watches and continuously rewinds the tape, attempting to make out Evelyn's truth.

[edit] Trivia

Similar to the film Lost In Translation in which the audience never learns what Bill Murray whispers to Scarlett Johansson prior to his leaving Japan, LaBute uses the final moments of The Shape Of Things to distance the audience from the most intimate details of his story.^{[citation needed]}