The Shape of Things, Neil LaBute's film version of his 2001 play, builds up to a supposedly shocking finale. Except that it is more tedious than shocking. The message? Women can be as unlikable as men. If you don't need to go to a movie to figure that one out, giv
e Shape a miss.
LaBute's most interesting work, The Company of Men, was relentlessly misanthropic. With his latest, he seems to have expanded his range. He is now misogynistic as well. Which can be fun, if you're in the mood for woman bashing.
Unfortunately, this film is anything but fun. It is little more than a clever undergrad thesis gone awfully wrong.
"There is only art," says Evelyn, Rachel Weisz's character, an angry artist with a grudge against cute men. That line should tip you off: there is something very clever coming up. Unfortunately, it did not tip me off, or not enough.
Evelyn proceeds to transform Adam (Paul Rudd), a wimpy, fat boy, into a certified hunk. In the process, she turns his life upside down.
But if you think this is one of those romantic comedies in which love transforms a wimp into a hunk and all turns out well, you are completely mistaken.
The film chronicles an art project gone awry. Evelyn looks at all of life as a sort of terminal work of art, and people as so many lumps of clay waiting to be remade.
It is very obvious that this movie began its life as a play. There are only four characters, the same four actors who appeared in the stage version. And most of the dialogue-heavy sequences are shot indoors. 
Ever so often, LaBute takes his camera into the streets and parks of California, but those occasions do little to lighten the air of claustrophobia the rest of the film concocts.
Rudd's character is rarely engaging -- his upper lip quivers too much and even though he gets a nose job, a haircut and loses 20 pounds it doesn't really change his essential nature.
Weisz, on the other hand, is so engaging, you want to yell at her. This is a woman who is convinced nothing is real, whose art for art's sake philosophy and eccentric personality is supposed to excuse her heartlessness and manipulation.
Gretchen Moll, as Jenny, a friend Adam must jettison to keep his new girlfriend happy, is fetching though never compelling.
LaBute intended The Shape of Things to be a though-provoking satire on men and women. It was supposed to be the kind of movie that, at its end, would make you re-think everything you have seen.
The only thing I had second thoughts about was the impulse that made me waste a perfectly fine Saturday evening.
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