Long after In the Company of Men first hit theaters in New York and Los Angeles in August, the movie mecca of Knoxville is getting its first taste of the bitter film that captures the bleakness of human nature.
Neil Labute wrote, directed and co-produced the feature film which won over many critics with its fresh plot and the brilliance of its three leads.
Labute wrote a script that tackles the intricacy of the business world and the men who somehow end up dominating it. The movie starts in an airport as two white-collar executives prepare to start work on a six-week project in a satellite office.
Waiting to board the plane, Howard, whose acute portrayal is performed by Matt Malloy, tells Chad about his problem with his ex-fiance, work and life in general. Chad, cunningly played by Aaron Eckhart, only adds fuel to Howard's fire as he tells the depressed businessman about his lover also leaving him and how he fears that their younger, more deceptive co-workers are passing them by.
Their conversation lasts until they get to the hotel where Chad conceives the perfect plan. He decides that the two should exact revenge on womankind for the misery that they have put the two men through and the games that they have played on them. Chad convinces Howard to go along with this plot, which entails the two dating a helpless girl, building her up, treating her exceptionally well and then dumping her flat on her face.
The prey is a deaf typist that works at their office named Christine (Stacy Edwards). The two weave their tangled web around the poor typist, but the scheme does not go as planed for all parties involved.
The performances turned in by Eckhart, Edwards and Malloy carry the movie as they sustain emotion during times of uncomfortable silences and deliver realistic roles throughout the film. Eckhart, who appeared in the movie In and Out, does a superb job in becoming Chad, a hard-nosed, smash-mouth, cunning male chauvinist pig.
Edwards and Malloy add spectacular performances to complement Eckhart. Edwards studied for her role by spending weeks with the hearing-impaired in preparation for this part. Her portrayal of a deaf woman was so realistic that the audience is unaware that the actress is not really deaf.
The trio fit perfectly into Labute's script, flourishing with rich dialogue which is at times cancerous and hard-hitting. However, the film's cinematography is shoddy at times, probably a result of the lack of a strong financial backing.
All in all, In the Company of Men is a well-crafted script which features three great performances. It is presently showing at the Terrace Theatre.
Rating: *** [3 out of 5[
NOW that political correctness is no longer the hip handshake of those on the higher ground, men behaving badly accentuates an anti-feminist approach to Nineties masculinity. This is the one they're talking about in the executive bog. It scooped the Filmmaker's Trophy at Sundance, 1997.
Neil LaBute is a playwright. His script reads like an e-mail from Buzz Central. Cinematically it's a talkie - the words walk, the visuals stand still. A trimmed cast perform with excellence. What hurts is the subject matter. Chad (Aaron Eckhart) treats the fair sex like emotional popcorn: bad for the complexion and sticky on the fingers. He's a misogynist who finds mental cruelty a turn-on. He's also a ruthless charmer, capable of ditching his best friend if it means promotion. Amorality oozes off him, like sweat. He has the self-confidence of a wart-hog.
Howard (Matt Malloy) is Chad's buddy and boss. If he wasn't his boss, he wouldn't be his buddy. At high school, he must have been class swot and star of the football team. With computers, he's online, but in personal matters low self-esteem anticipates rejection. He's a whiner, with an aggressive under-ego that demands recognition.
They are off on a six week reorganisational program at a branch office in another city. Howard's pissed at the break-up of his relationship with his girl. Chad sympathises. He's having the same difficulties with his bedroom companion. Women, as far as he' s concerned, deserve pay-back. Fashionable feminist bigmouths rate guys as endangered species, he reckons. No more. No way!
"Let's hurt somebody,' he say. He persuades the weak and semi-willing Howard to play a game. They find a girl, right? Preferably vulnerable, reasonable looking and (even better) disabled. They seduce her. Together, separately. When she's hooked, they let her down with a whack and watch the pain. Tooo good! Howard knows it's not right, but he's been hurt, so what the heck. Chad's on a power trip. "Women, they're all the same,' he announces. "Meat and gristle and hatred, just simmering." He can't wait to get even. This is a white shirt, no jacket corporate jungle, where men are on top and women used.
Christine (Stacy Edwards) works as a temp. She's shy and deaf and a perfect victim. Things don't go strictly to plan, because with emotions involved there is always the possibility of premature dysfunction.
The film is clever, too clever. It is like watching torture in slow motion. LaBute would take that as a yes. There is no pleasure in his game. Sadism, however you wrap it, endorses the cruelest cut of all: man's ability to destroy. The worst aspects of male chauvinism are paraded with pride. LaBute avoids irony, or satire. He leaves the audience in shock to make up its own mind.
Some people confuse "bad movies" with "movies about bad things". This has always bothered me. In The Company of Men, for example, is a very good movie about two guys who emotionally destroy an innocent woman. Titanic was a very bad movie about two kids from different sides of the tracks who fall in love (on a sinking ship).
The setting: Chad's girlfriend apparently moved out and took everything. He and Howard are at the airport embarking on a 6-week project for their company. Howard was just slapped by a woman for no reason (he asked for the time). Chad and Howard discuss how to get back at their women -- at all women, in fact. Chad develops a plan: In this new city, they'll both find a girl, date her, smother her with love, and at the end of 6 weeks, pull the rug out from under her -- and pull it hard. The movie has several surprises (some predictable, some not), so rather than ruin them I'll end the plot summary here.
The first time I saw this movie was in a theater in Austin TX, and I didn't like it. The second time I saw this movie was on Valentines Day, at home, with several male friends. It was quite refreshing. Neil Labute takes brutality to an entirely new level. Almost all of it comes directly from Chad -- a character who you should dislike intensely. Originally I didn't like Aaron Eckhart's performance (as Chad). I didn't think it was believable (that someone could be so cruel). But this movie isn't exactly realistic anyway so I've changed my mind and officially give him a thumbs-up. Matt Malloy is also excellent, as is Stacy Edwards. In fact, Matt Malloy gets the Best Acting award for the movie. Skip this next sentence if you donut want to spoil part of the movie. I just found out that Stacy Edwards, whose character (Christine) is deaf, is apparently not deaf herself. I'm extremely impressed.
Though it doesn't really have much to do with plot, Labute points a funny finger at the great American business with this film. We see meetings, we hear Chad and Howard talk about their jobs, we hear about reports that have to get done and numbers that have to get crunched, parties, messy interns in the break room, but we never actually have any idea of what the hell it is that this business actually does. It's a consistently funny running gag, I think. In fact, if any parts of this movie can be considered funny, it's those bits about corporate culture. If not for those, the movie would be a real downer (not that it isn't already).
But like I said, the fact that this movie is a downer doesn't imply that it's a bad movie. It is a good movie. It is worth seeing. I would, however, advise against watching this movie in the presence of women. Particularly either of my two female roommates. They got violent.
Grade: B-
A robotic, stygian drama that shows flashes of brilliance between long pauses of self-congratulatory posing. Eckhart and Malloy play former college pals now employed by the same company, which sends them off on a six-week assignment into middle-America. Recently jilted by women, both are defensively embittered and Eckhart prescribes gender revenge by victimizing the heart of the company's deaf typist (Edwards) who works under them. The edgy love triangle and the well-engineered plot twists make Labute's acerbic effort play out like a watered down variation of Glengarry Glen Ross, though the "gotcha" ending manages to be whimsical even as it nears pure misogyny. Edwards' sensitive vulnerability is disarming and gives the film substance, but it's Eckhart's venomous charisma that makes this dark psychodrama worthwhile.
Rating: ** 1/2 [2.5 out of 5 stars]
One of few films at this year's festival to generate much controversy, Neil LaBute's "In the Company of Men" is a flawed but fascinating look at male bonding, misogyny, and Machiavellian competitiveness in contemporary corporate culture. Chad (Aaron Eckhart) and Howard (Matt Malloy), two junior execs disgruntled with their lots in life, formulate a plan: Finding the most fragile, unassuming female they can, they will emotionally and sexually exploit her and then summarily dump her. Why? Simply to prove they can do it.
As their unwitting quarry, Christine (a superb Stacy Edwards), a secretary in their office, is everything they had hoped for and more: lovely, trusting, vulnerable--and deaf. After she's dated both men and fallen blindly for Chad, he brushes her off unsympathetically in a scene so heartless it leaves the audience reeling. Eckhart, at times flat, at others chillingly good, excels particularly in this rejection sequence, exuding a blend of arrogance and smarminess.
What is so troubling about this Alliance production is that Chad receives no comeuppance. Not only has he manipulated an unsuspecting female, he also manages to take advantage of his friend Howard. Because Chad never pays for his cruelty, the film is a real departure from classical convention: Not one ounce of moral restitution can be found in the climax. As such, writer/director LaBute's tacit acceptance of this kind of behavior comes perilously close to an endorsement. It leaves the viewer piqued but fundamentally unsatisfied. Worse, the inconsistent acting and poor production values compromise the film; the dialogue itself is sharp and incisive but, as one strains to hear it, crucial words and ideas are lost.
Rating: ***** [5 out of 5 stars]
Expect to be provoked, confronted and challenged in this fiercely original first feature from writer/director LaBute. It's the twisted tale of Chad (Eckhart from In and Out) and Howard, (Malloy from Trust), two junior execs who hatch a grim plan to emotionally destroy a woman, "Let's do it," they agree, "let's hurt somebody."
They conspire to simultaneously date and then dump the same girl, thus getting revenge on all the women who have ever hurt them. In their sterile office-world, they find their prey - the deaf, vulnerable Christine (a brilliant Edwards - from the TV show Chicago Hope). It's difficult to believe that Edwards is not actually deaf, her portrayal of Christine is beyond criticism.
It's painful to watch the manipulative, "charming" Chad sweep her off her feet one moment, only to tell cruel jokes about the deaf minutes later. While Chad is without conscience, Howard's having moral problems - what's more, he's falling in love with Christine.
Meanwhile, as the bizarre love triangle becomes dark and dangerous, momentum builds to an unpredictable conclusion.
In the Company of Men also makes a harsh, clinical assessment of the corporate world. The offices are impersonal, the workers faceless, the company nameless.
In its most confronting scene, Chad intimidates an underling, a black man, to drop his trousers - he wants to see whether the guy's got "balls". Chad does this only because he can. It's got nothing to do with sex, and everything to do with power.
LaBute gives no real justification for Chad's malevolence - no childhood flashbacks to elicit sympathy. He also refuses to supply the standard ending for a character like Chad.
A minimalist set and a sharp script add to the starkness of the story. This film, which has a sting in its tail, is likely to spark debate as to LaBute's intentions. Some women may find it offensive, a real boys' club offering. But others will see that the central female is the only one with the director's sympathy. The three main characters are all flawed, but Christine less so, her only sin is to see two men at once.
There are times that you want to get up out of your cinema seat and scream out a warning to Christine. She, and this film draw you in, but it's none-too-comfortable once you're in there.
Inevitabilmente, dopo aver origliato di furibonde polemiche americane, attendevamo "Nella società degli uomini" per impressionarci della sua inattuale carica misogina. Da qualche parte, non diremo dove per non fare la solita accademia, nei cent'anni di cinema la misoginia ha funzionato, probabilmente perchè si tratta (meglio, si può trattare) pur sempre di uno stato emotivo ad altissima tensione. Da questo punto di vista, delusi certo, sÌ. Principalmente perchè i due misogini del caso nel film ci fanno sempre una figura assai meschina, frustrati e per i motivi patetici per cui lo sono. Il loro progetto, tanto più, non assume nessuna particolare colorazione diabolica, nè può aver altro fascino che quello, chissà, eventuale, dell'imbecillità.
Riassumendo, Chad e Howard, due giovani laureatisi nella stessa università e ora impiegati nella stessa ditta, con Howard sempre un gradino al di sopra dell'amico, partono per una trasferta lavorativa di sei settimane diretti in un'altra città statunitense non ben identificabile (l'ambiente privo dell'enorme pullulare di gente tipico delle metropoli americane sembra appartenere alla provincia). I caratteri sono sbozzati alla maniera dello stereotipo: Chad è belloccio e sbruffone, Howard timido e vigliacco. Per rifarsi della vita che si prende gioco di loro (professionalmente e sentimentalmente) , su proposta partita da Chad decidono di giocare un brutto tiro a una qualche poveretta abbastanza fragile per cadere nella loro rete. Costei sarà una segretaria sorda e invero graziosa. La scelta di rendere muto il personaggio femminile a confronto con chi della parola deve esprimerne l'enfasi e il potere resta l'idea più interessante del film, in un contesto però in cui non ne vengono sfruttate a fondo le potenzialità tranne che nello scarto finale forse fin troppo parossistico. Ecco che "Nella società degli uomini" si può apprezzare soprattutto per la descrizione che fa dell'ambiente aziendale, coi suoi inappuntabili colori grigio-lividi e un tono generale che molto fatica per non sembrare dolente e stanco.
"In the Company of Men" may not subject you to actual bloodshed, but it doesn't have to. Set in the dehumanized world of corporate America, Neil LaBute's movie revels in figurative violence -- the emotional damage that can be wreaked on lovers, for one, and the back-stabbing in the office when everyone's vying for promotion, for another. This independent, low-budget movie (it cost a mere $25,000) shreds its characters' souls, tears misogynistically into the female gender, and leaves you feeling more cut up about humanity than you did before the movie.
Is there a reason to see such a feel-bad movie? Not for many people. Yet, there's something about "In the Company of Men" that pulls you in deeper and deeper. Its subject matter is too compelling to ignore. And your repulsion for the lead performer -- played with unnerving presence by Aaron Eckhart -- becomes a disconcerting fascination. As the appropriately named Chad Piercewell, he's the movie's most malignant presence and its top draw.
When the movie starts, Chad and his supervisor-friend, Howard (Matt Malloy), are lamenting the way they've been treated by their women. Chad complains that his wife walked out on him. Howard is recovering from a physical attack from the wife he's divorcing. And these salesmen are in a business where young turks are constantly snapping at their heels.
"I get low numbers two months in a row?" says Chad, "They're going to feed on my insides." As they prepare to fly to a branch office for a six-week spell, Chad hits on an idea. Why not take out their frustrations on an innocent, defenseless woman who isn't getting much romantic attention in her life? First, they'll feign romantic interest in her and, as soon as her ego swells from the attention of two men, they'll drop her like a stone. It takes a few drinks, but Howard finally says, "I'm in."
Chad is elated. "Let's hurt somebody," he says.
In the first week at the branch office, Chad selects the prey. Her name is Christine (Stacy Edwards). She's sweet, trusting and happens to be deaf. Perfect victim material. Chad starts the process, takes her out, finds out about her, sends flowers, the whole deal. Then Howard starts in. Things get "romantic" between Chad and Christine; while Howard makes a show of rivalry. The weeks shoot by, heading inexorably towards that moment of treachery.
This movie might shock you; it ought to. It might make your blood boil. It might even tickle you (if so, please seek help). But it won't leave you without a strong opinion. Is there more to it than the sadistic humiliation of a deaf woman, not to mention Chad's all-but-racist humiliation of an African American male intern? I think so. "In the Company of Men" elbows you into looking beyond your initial attitudes to gender, race or socioeconomic status. It's not just a mere exercise in misogyny and other ignoble abstractions, but a study of the kind of world that produces a Chad Piercewell. It's also about the way that Howard -- an apparently decent man -- could be coerced into committing an unspeakable act.
For the record, it's exceedingly well-made. Eckhart is in chilling command as a sort of satanic prince in shirtsleeves, while Malloy and Edwards imbue their roles with edgy sensitivity. Writer/director LaBute, a Fort Wayne, Ind.-based playwright, whose debut this is, has a masterful hand with camera angles, irony and dramatic structure. (In fact, the film is patterned after a five-act Restoration comedy.) This is a fully realized movie, whose intelligence -- despite its grim findings -- dwarfs any Hollywood production. It's a film to admire -- even if it leaves you cold.
Movie rating: 8/10
DVD rating: 6/10
Review
Chad (Aaron Eckhart) and Howard (Matt Malloy), two junior execs on a six week business trip to California, have recently been stung by women. Discussing their woes over dinner and beer, they devise a vicious plan to get even with all the women who have hurt them in their lives. Their pact: Find a vulnerable woman, romance her until she falls in love...with the both of them, and then drop her hard once their six weeks in California expire. The idea is that no matter what women do to them in the future, they can always look back at how horribly they've hurt this unsuspecting woman, and always feel comforted at the fact that women could never hurt them as much as they've hurt this woman. Even more disturbing is the fact that the woman they wind up doing this to is a young, intelligent, beautiful woman who works in their California office, who also happens to be deaf.
Winner of the Filmmakers Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival for director Neil LaBute's dark comedy, In The Company of Men is one of the most discomforting and disturbing looks at the male psyche I've ever seen. Aaron Eckhart's Chad is so brilliantly nasty that even when he makes you laugh, you feel horrible about yourself:
Chad to Howard: "Never trust anything that can bleed for a week and not die."
The acting is stunning, and the film left me floored for several days. The final scene is what makes it a classic; gut-wrenching and desperate, it's a dead silence that rings violently in your ears.
The Disc
This film was made for just $20,000, so the fact that it even has a director and cast commentary is amazing. The commentary itself is extremely insightful, and having the actors participate in the analysis of the film and production along with LaBute gives you a fantastic perspective of the motivations behind the entire cast. One of the many interesting tidbits I found out by watching the commentary: All of the actors had to sleep over in LaBute's apartment during the shoot because there wasn't enough money to pay for hotels.
Picture Quality: 6/10
The transfer came out a little bit dark, but it actually works out great for the film. Overall, the picture quality is a little bit grainy, typically what you'd expect from a low budget independent film.
Sound Quality: 7/10
Sound plays a huge role, rare for films like this. Startling at times, it definitely sets the pace for the proceeding sequences throughout the film.
Menu: 6/10
Plain and simple, no flashiness, no surprises.
Extra Features: 7/10
While the only extra features the disc contains are trailers and the audio commentary, the commentary is as good as I've ever heard on a DVD. Definitely adds a new dimension to the film.
The Final Word:
1997's hidden gem of the Independent circuit, it didn't get the exposure it deserved because the plotline just scared too many potential distributors away. Definitely worth a gander on rental, but if you love black comedies, a definite must have.
Rating: *** [3 out of 4 stars]
S'ètant rendu compte qu'il n'en avait plus rien à f... de rien, Chad, cadre trentenaire dans une sociètè informatique performante, dècide avec la complicitè hèsitante d'un collègue de se venger de la gent fèminine et de retrouver sa dignitè de mâle. Le procèdè? Sèduire une jeune femme qui semble avoir fait une croix sur l'amour et, lorsqu'elle sera tombèe amoureuse, la lourder aussi sec, histoire de la blesser profondèment. Cette jeune femme ce sera Christine, la jolie secrètaire sourde.
Neil LaBute doesn't think much of human nature. For him, the species breaks down into predator and prey, which explains why his film "In the Company of Men" doesn't punish the wicked. In fact, the wicked are rewarded, because, in life, survival is of the fittest, not the nicest.
LaBute gives us Chad, the corporate warrior playing a take-no-prisoners game in his pursuit of the corner office, and Howie, a human being so corporately inept that he doesn't even know there's a game on. He's not much better socially. The film opens mere seconds after a woman has bitten him on the ear for asking her what time it is.
The two are out of town for a six-week project. En route, they discover that they've both been dumped by their girlfriends. Chad comes up with a plan of revenge not just against their ex'es, but all womankind. They'll find a wallflower. They'll wine her, dine her and when the six weeks are up, dump her. She'll be suicidal and Chad and Howie will be laughing about it till the end of their days. Howie, to his credit, doesn't leap at the idea. But Chad plays on Howie's need to please and basic insecurity. Howie succumbs.
They target a beautiful, deaf typist. A mistake, perhaps, making her so beautiful and with an invisible disability. But Stacy Edwards as the erstatz love object is so fragile and earnest, that even if you don't buy her not believing that she's date material, it still works as a life lesson in the smooth and studly Chad's ability to manipulate. Especially when that manipulation spurs her on to her own machinations.
"In the Company of Men" has been criticized for being misogynist. It's not. It IS a film ABOUT misogyny. And misanthropy, for that matter. LaBute has caught every nuance of the insidious and hard-rending fallout for both sexes with an economy of dialogue that accurately reflects corporate culture as a metaphor for the world at large. No sugar coating here, but what a fascinating and dangerous date movie it makes. See it with someone you love.
Two women I know went to see "In the Company of Men." One seemed to like it, the other came back spitting cotton. I was prepared for the worst, but wound up liking all but one sequence of Labute's biting first film, and I especially appreciated its ironic conclusion. "In the Company of Overgrown Infants" would be a more accurate description of the friendship of Chad (Aaron Eckhardt) and Howard (Matt Malloy). To identify these two creeps as misogynists would be to miss the depth and scope of their hatred. Chad and Howard set the record for what they actually are: Misanthropes! They hate everybody: males, females, minorities, the handicapped, younger colleagues...The list goes on and on. After checking out Howard's injured ear (Inflicted by a Woman, Grrr...) in a public bathroom for men, Chad comes up with the ultimate revenge. Why don't they both go out with the same insecure, vulnerable woman, treat her like crap, and then, when they've done enough damage to last her entire lifetime, Bust Up With Her?! And so they do. (Has this ever happened to me? Yeh, once, by one misanthrope, and that was enough, Ouch!)
Chad & Howard find Christine, a lovely, shy, deaf colleague (Stacy Edwards, who's outstanding) and start to chat her up and date her up, one week at a time. During the title cards announcing every new week, Ken William's pulsating score escalates in intensity and volume. Of course, Christine, who isn't in on their brilliant scheme, changes all the rules and all the strategies. There is a subtle yet significant difference between a movie which is misogynistic and a movie about misogynistic characters. Labute treads a dangerous line here, but his artistic vision is mature enough for careful viewers to realize that he is, in fact, busting Chad and Howard on their language, their attitudes and their behavior.
The one sequence where Labute overstacks the deck occurs when Chad asks a black male colleague to unzip so he can check out whether he has the necessary equipment for the job. Yeh, yeh, we know that Chad is the lowest form of life on Earth, but he really shouldn't be in one piece after making a request like that. Guillotine splicer to the rescue, please! Aside from that, "In the Company of a Men" is satire most savage.
Sometime during the first two decades of the 20th Century women began to get some respect. They got the Vote, started smoking in public, during World War II dented the workforce (by necessity), and with the civil rights movement and economics of the last two decades plunged full force into the male dominated workplace. That's a Cliff's Notes version of 20th Century female America. While much has changed, the constant has been women's necessary evil - dealing with those bastards of the opposite sex and all of the selfish and reactionary behavior that comes with the package. Now I'm no psychologist, but somewhere wrapped within this coexistence/ rivalry lies the age old need, drive and weapon trait of human behavior---that of power, the need to obtain it, maintain it, remind ones self of its hold and, at worst, abuse it and smear it into the face of those without it.
The manifestation of this phenomenon and the agonies, large and small, that it scatters about find voice in two recent films: In the Company of Men, writer/director Neil LaBute's presentation of (as he calls it) "the male ego run amok" and Female Perversions, Susan Streitfeld's adapted investigation of the pressures and anxieties of contemporary womanhood.
Labute's company of men includes the nervous and wormy Howard (Matt Malloy) [think George Costanza, but not for laughs] and the suave and confident Chad (Aaron Eckhart) [think Harrison Ford, cynical and with no impending doom] as two members of the same anonymous white collar corporation. The film opens with these two business types on their way to city USA for a six week project, passing layover time in airport USA by bitching to and fro about these bastards and those bastards and talking white-boy-with-a-tie tough. During a series of long takes--waiting, walking, flying, riding--Howard and Chad's amusingly spiteful dialogue blends any number of bitter subjects and conveniently slides toward one major point of delusion and agreement--the opposite sex is evil and deserves to pay. Over a few drinks (where they belittle a waitress for bringing them beer rather than martinis: "what are we, a couple of frat boys?" --well) Chad concocts their master plan of revenge-- they will find the most naive and vulnerable woman possible, simultaneously woo her, and in like manner dump her flat just as she thinks her dreams for romance have come true. Howard agrees to the plan, however reluctantly, and upon beginning their six weeks of off-site work, Chad discovers a company employee that fits perfectly into his game: Christine (Stacy Edwards), an attractive, deaf secretary ideally eager for their affections.
These pals exhibit everything we like to despise in others -- self absorption, malevolence, insincerity and immorality. To know sleaze like this is to hate it, but to be able to watch it on the screen is an embarrassingly guilty pleasure. The character's actions are the results of what for most people would be a passing thought, fantasy or dare briefly considered and laughed off-- a hypothetical what-if scenario. Labute's men, though, actually have the audacity, guts and moral [strength or weakness] to play it out.
Company's deceitful love triangle inevitably blurs with Chad and Howard's corporate affairs, and while Howard claims the higher rank, he shows signs of vulnerability. His already tenuous grasp on the Company project weakens, and, most critically, he reveals increased sincere feelings for Christine. Here we touch on the film's most bitter irony: traits that in other worlds signify humane tendencies here represent utter weakness. Chad, on the other hand, proves he has the coldness of heart necessary to survive, and although his actions are most contemptible, in Company's [sick] context, contempt has an odd way of teetering on admiration. In Oliver Stone's Wall Street Gordon Gecko slit throats for the righteous sake of greed and financial ambition (and of course the addiction to power) and he gives a rather convincing case for his actions. Although greed might be good, pain and devastation are not; but as Chad executes the final moves of a deceptively far reaching plan Company steps beyond the realm of justified injustice and into one that is ugly and despicable, but consistent, committed and yes, admirable.
Labute drives the film toward its conclusion by rigidly structuring the action into segments, counting down by week (we know that six weeks have been allotted us) complete with titles, cuts to black and an momentum supplying score. Stylistically, In the Company of Men keeps a generic distance in every way: it claims no specific locations, the art direction is minimal so as to only establish environment type, zero camera movement results in zero induced emotional response, and save Christine (to whom Labute gives an exclusive endorsement) the other excellent performances defy us the comfort of a personal connection.
At this point, I suppose an ideal segue into Female Perversions would have me explaining that where Labute's film does its best to keep a distance, Streitfeld's softens us up with first person insights into the mind of her main (female) character, a perfect gender polarity of writer/ director approach and subject. But while Perversions certainly digs more directly into the head of its protagonist, the result is anything but warm and fuzzy, for the film exhibits that a much broader, non-specific company of men hangs in the female subconscious.
Female Perversions opens with its credits appearing over images of bondage. Indefinite in the exact relationship between the various tangled shadings of skin and cloth, they immediately project a gentle eroticism. Interjected and returned to throughout the film, one specific image/ action gains prominence -- two hands, in close-up, pulling on the cloth with conviction, tightening whatever bound being sits at the opposite end. This modest image encompasses Female Perversions' complex spectrum of themes, blurring the lines between sexuality, power and the erotic.
Writer/ director Susan Streitfeld adapted Loise J. Kaplan's 1991 book Female Perversions: the Temptations of Emma Bovary which chronicled the odd and often self destructive habits of various women. The book theorizes, as implied in the film's text prologue, that these behaviors stem from the world's social and sexual forces: relentless and unreasonable in nature, and thus perverse. Streitfeld successfully brings these ideas to life through Eve, a hotshot lawyer on the short list for judicial promotion. We follow Eve as she heads into a weekend without her boyfriend, attracts a female lover and attempts to save her kleptomaniac sister from jail. Any plot lines, though, act simply as parasites clinging to the film's thematic hosts; Female Perversions makes its most insightful points from inside Eve's head.
Bouncing back and forth from reality, hypothetical fantasy sequences, starring Eve's alter-ego of apprehension and submissiveness, interject the narrative. These uncertain moments are fueled by sexual power surges which, in their extreme nature, far outweigh the seemingly insignificant moments that spark them. Eve often hears voices scolding her for either her imperfect physique or her incompetence as a lawyer (two items she need not worry about). In the film's most jarring sequence, Eve sits in her office practicing her hopefully-soon-to-be JUDGE EVE signature when she is all but raped while her attacker scribbles out the word JUDGE, chastising her for her presumptions. As a group, these thought visualizations touch on disturbing (however false) aspects of anxiety and inadequacy.
Female Perversions' true achievement, though, is the manner in which it plays games with gender. At moments perpetuating while at others undermining, Streitfeld's puree of stereotype, history and individual will reveals an astute eye for human behavior. In perhaps her shrewdest move, the director avoids lowest common denominator male bashing by rendering its few male characters bland and generic. By providing no concrete bad guys the film side-steps all possible accusations of being reactionary. Instead, what Eve and her female counterparts must face in nearly every scene is the ubiquitous cloud of male subjugation, masked, with (save her exaggerated fear-fantasy men) no specific faces to accuse. What the film substantiates, then, is an unfortunate social lesson: regardless of the nature of individuals, society carries an enormous amount of baggage, difficult to avoid, ignore or overcome.
Eve, in fact, becomes what she fights against, as the film subtly links her professional ambition to masculine behavior. In her relationship with an attractive female doctor, Eve takes on a typically male persona. Post-seduction, refusing to comfort her needing lover, Eve exhibits an insensitivity and abruptness normally reserved for the brooding male types. But Streitfeld seeks to shoot further than mere gender bending. During one sexual encounter, moments of accelerating tenderness are interrupted as Eve asserts a jumbled supremacy: she mounts her female lover, and thrusts, missionary style, pelvis to pelvis against increased resistance. The action ceases as any love scene might between one resisting and one resisted, the enforcer coming to his [I mean her] senses; but here Perversions transgresses all categorizations it to this point had worked so hard for or against. Eve's job related suppressions/ ambitions, her heterosexual fears/ frustrations and her imagination-bred irrationality find release in a confused orgy of gender, sex and superiority.
So what does all of this mean? In the case of Female Perversions , in the simplest sense, I suppose it represents a gender state of the union, one that not only feels the weight of social history, but also, in its final scene, suggests a self-awareness and humility necessary for an optimistic future. A friend of mine asked a related question: Why was In the Company of Men made?, implying few if any redeeming qualities. Outrageous in nearly every way, these Men certainly prove difficult to identify with. The film, though, is no different than any investigation of humanity's darkness [dare I say the word art]. Expelling isolation (at least temporarily) and placing ourselves within its murky context not only enlightens our moral soles, but it's also a whole lot of disagreeable fun.
¿Cómo es posible que un film sin muertos ni violencia física se convierta en algo tan perturbador para el espectador? La narración está tan bien hilada que esa crueldad desplegada por los protagonistas es objeto de rechazo y fascinación al mismo tiempo.
Chad (Aaron Eckhart) y Howard (Matt Malloy) son compañeros de trabajo. Howard es en realidad el jefe, pero difícilmente el espectador pueda darse cuenta de ello, a juzgar por la relación entre ambos.
Chad no es más que un arrogante y bocón, que parece odiar todo lo que lo rodea. Prejuicioso, todo lo que hace está en función de su egoísmo. Howard es más vulnerable, arrastrado por su compañero hacia cierto tipo de maldad. En un mundo sin líderes naturales, nos damos cuenta de que muchos terminamos siendo Chads (fríos, calculadores) o Howards (sometidos, seguidores).
Ambos atravesaron recientemente dificultades de pareja. Durante un viaje de negocios, Chad plantea "una idea genial" para olvidarse de sus respectivas mujeres: que los dos seduzcan a la misma chica y, en cuanto ella se enamore, abandonarla. Esta diversión les devolverá "el predominio del hombre sobre las hembras", un item importante en la intrincado cerebro de estos depredadores. La elegida es Christine (Stacy Edwards), una atractiva secretaria, pero indefensamente sorda. Ella finalmente se sentirá atraida por Chad, creyendo que encontró a su alma gemela. Y ese es el punto en el cual el film se torna incómodo de llevar, porque todos terminamos siendo cómplices de esa actitud despectiva.
"En compañía de los hombres" es el brillante debut de Neil LaBute, que se convierte en un retrato de la alienación. Las espectadoras femeninas se encontrarán con una especie de pesadilla sobre el sexismo, pero no es èse solamente el objetivo de LaBute. Chad es el prototipo del irrespetuoso, y de una u otra forma, todos los hombres terminan parecièndose a èl. Aaron Eckhart desplegó todo su talento en este papel. La cuota de perversión y humor negro está inteligentemente dosificada, como para alcanzar un punto de desprecio y al mismo tiempo resignación.
Stop me if you think you've heard this one before: two guys sitting in a bar, just ordinary white-collar Aqua Velva schlumps, a few pay raises short of a racquetball membership, drowning their sorrows and off-hours in gin and whining about the women who've done them wrong. Nebbishy, niggling Howard (Matt Malloy) has a stalker former fiancée and is nursing a punch from a female stranger whom he may or may not have propositioned; Chad (Aaron Eckhart), a walking, talking, belching reservoir of menstruation jokes and testosterone, recently suffered the desertion of his girlfriend, who spirited off all his possessions save the futon and his American Gigolo poster. "Even took the frame, that bitch," Chad fumes.
Familiar proceedings thus far, no? Cast Steve Buscemi and one of the guys from Swingers, ask Tom DiCillio to direct, and FedEx the print to Miramax. But though Howard and Chad's plights, such as they are, are funny in and of themselves, writer and director Neil LaBute isn't obviously playing his In the Company of Men for laughs. He operates in long, static shots that allow for close readings of each angle, and this Kubrickean approach lets more of Howard's desperation, and of Chad's viciousness, seep into the frame than a straight-on comedy would accommodate. LaBute is setting us up for the film's curve ball: Chad wants Howard to aid and abet him in the seduction and subsequent betrayal of a woman--preferably vulnerable in some way, handicapped or maybe emotionally troubled--as a kind of blanket retribution for all the duplicitous girls they've screwed before. "Let's hurt somebody," Chad grunts, like he's back on the football team.
The audience in the theater with me laughed incredulously at this exchange. Chad's plan is altogether outlandish, but as the entire film rests on a supposition of predatory, preemptory revenge, the moviegoer has little choice but to accept it. And one can do so with impunity if one decides early on to view Howard, Chad--and later Christine, their chosen victim--as abstractions, equally unsympathetic figures in a black comedy of the evil that men do.
The men wine and dine, woo and flatter Christine (pretty, ineffectual Stacy Edwards), a deaf secretary in the office where they work, and LaBute takes pains to delineate the motives behind these machinations. Howard--who is neither man nor mouse, but a self-pitying, self-loathing, self-justifying lemming--at first just follows Chad's lead, but soon finds himself in love with the girl. Chad, amazingly, isn't misogynist or misanthropic so much as just power-hungry. With their white-shirts-and-ties uniforms and cell-like, florescent-lit offices, Howard and Chad are meant to constitute a two-pronged indictment of the corporate world.
Alas, In the Company of Men is not intelligent enough or--perhaps more importantly--funny enough to be much of an indictment of anything but its own shallowness. The sight of Howard terrorizing Christine or Chad humiliating his co-workers doesn't expose the sordid underbelly of corporate culture (as if it needed exposing), but rather LaBute's lack of imagination and respect for subtlety. He wants to place us in the position of complicit voyeurs, but to do so he needs to titillate--we need Chad to seduce us with his frat-boy charm, or Howard's desperation to move us to empathy (or alternately, to disgust). In short, LaBute needs to take a little wicked, knowing pleasure in the malice at work in his picture, so that we can do the same. Aaron Eckhart seems to understand--he has a wonderfully expressive upper lip, which he curls sneeringly in most scenes and then yanks downward in the close-lipped smile he offers Christine. He has a great moment when Chad tells Christine, "I want to nurture us and see us blossom"; his nostrils flare and his eyes shine, and you can watch his facial muscles quiver in barely suppressed glee.
But Eckhart's shrewd performance finds the wrong Company: it's a terribly earnest film. Even the crass shock value of the preposterous scene in which Chad forces a young intern to pull down his pants--to demonstrate, in literal terms, if the young man has "got the balls" for the job--is lowered a bit by its sermonizing tone, summed up as "These business types are baaad." LaBute's written dialogue is as monochromatic and mind-numbing as the dark, anonymous offices where his characters spend their days and nights; there's nothing of wit or substance filling the interminable shots of Howard and Chad at the diner, Howard and Christine at the restaurant, Chad and Christine in the hotel. The viewer feels as immobilized as the camera seems to be, and doubly cheated: not only does little happen to these dim, cipherous characters, but what does happen is often too ludricous--and too readily suited to LaBute's moralizing impulses--to believe. Boring realism is one thing, but boring allegory--now that's well-nigh unforgivable.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
The truth behind the powerful "In the Company of Men" isn't in taking sides in the traditional battle of the sexes, but in how many guys you might know readily capable of unleashing such repulsively mean-spirited schemes.
The setup in this first film from writer/director Neil LaBute finds a couple of corporate types, malicious Chad (Aaron Eckhart) and go-along Howard (Matt Malloy), plotting to ruin the emotional life of an innocent, deaf co-worker.
"It'll restore a little dignity to our lives," Chad tells his friend and supervisor before picking out the woman to be the object of their co-desires and misogynic frustrations. "... Just a little payback for all that messy relationship (crap)."
And so begins a six-week lesson in how not to treat a lady, from the (im)proper courting procedure to false promises to "pulling the rug out" at the end.
Believe it or not, LaBute does manage to mix some humor with his low-budget brilliance, even if the laughs do come with an uneasy swallow bordering on guilt.
Still, anyone who doesn't feel for poor put-upon Christine (Stacy Edwards in an incredibly moving performance) at least a half-dozen times throughout the entire squirm-breeding, jaw-dropping experience should be nicknamed Chad (rhymes with cad).
Grade: A
Have you ever hated the opposite sex? Ever wanted to mess with a member of the opposite sex just to get even for previous wrongs? Ever been screwed over by a coworker bucking for a promotion? And have you ever known someone who was capable of performing malicious acts just "because he could"? These are just a few of the hot-button issues at the heart of the controversial film "In The Company Of Men," the writing and directing debut of Neil LaBute (Nurse Betty, Your Friends and Neighbors). Most films shy away from the darker side of human nature, but LaBute puts it on full display in this brave, brutal film.
The movie centers around Chad (Aaron Eckhart) and Howard (Matt Malloy), two businessman with some pent-up bitterness toward females. After arriving in a town where they'll be spending the next six weeks on business, the two enjoy some drinks, and Chad proposes a plan to get even with the women who have wronged them. The two will find a plain, possibly handicapped woman ("someone who'd practically wet her pants if you gave her the time of day") and shower her with attention and romance, only to dump her without warning at the end of their 6-week business assignment. "She'll be reaching for the sleeping pills in a week," muses Chad with a smug grin on his face. "And no matter what any other woman does, we'll always have this..." The bookish Howard is a little skeptical at first but eventually agrees, and the game is on.
The subject of their game is Christine (Stacy Edwards), a pretty but deaf woman. As a result of her deafness, Christine has a high-pitched voice (which Chad cruelly mocks behind her back) that makes her reluctant to speak and generally shy. Chad and Howard start their seduction slowly, taking Christine on dates and sending her flowers before so much as a kiss has been exchanged. As the game progresses, it starts to become more and more complicated as one of the participants develops a potentially legitimate interest in Christine.
Although the game serves as the plot's center, LaBute addresses a wealth of issues in In The Company Of Men. Office politics are explored in hilarious-but-harsh detail, and the subject of power ultimately becomes the film's most-pressing topic. LaBute's guerrila filmmaking style is perfect for the subject matter, taking on explosive situations head on. In one memorable scene, Chad humiliates an African American underling. After the character pronounces the word "ask" as "aks," Chad gets in his face. "Let me give you some professional advice," his says in his most condescending tone, "The word is ASK." Is the scene a commentary on racism, office politics, power or all of the above? Whatever the case, LaBute proves in In The Company Of Men that he's the rare filmmaker with the guts to directly address a controversial subject.
The lead three performers are superb. Eckart is spectacular in a blistering portrayal of one of the most despicable characters to ever grace the screen. Malloy also does a fine job as Howard, a nerdy, seemingly sweet guy capable of being brutal in his own right. And Edwards is phenomenal, so convincing in her role that I though she actually WAS deaf (she's not).
In The Company Of Men is a daring, insightful work that is sure to provoke a strong reaction. Whether you love it or hate it, it's guaranteed to leave a lasting impression.