British Actress Blog

The Shape of Things (2003)

Score: 4/10

Director: Neil LaBute

Stars: Rachel Weisz, Paul Rudd, Gretchen Mol, Frederick Weller.

The Shape of Things

Rachel Weisz

Synopsis: A quiet and passive man begins to change in dramatic ways as a result of meeting a mysterious art student girlfriend, which deeply unsettles his friends.

Review: A man by the name of Adam Sorenson ( Paul Rudd ) works in a museum as a side job as he attends college. while working at the museum an art student named Evelyn Thompson cases the museum in order to vandalize the art work. Adam is instantly smitten with her and the two hit it off. As their relationship develops, she gradually encourages Adam to change in ways that surprise his long time friends, Jenny ( Gretchen Mol ) and Philip ( Frederick Weller ).

Evelyn Thompson

Rachel Weisz

This was one of the worst films Rachel Weisz has ever played in and worst yet she was a producer! Her performance was great in this film but I was so board throughout this whole movie I just wanted it to be over with. Rachel Weisz seems to love playing the master manipulator in her movies. Most of the films that I review of hers are her playing some kind of lair or con artist. Movies like confidence (2003), I Want You (1998), and Complete Unknown (2016) just to name a few. Her characters are She so sweet and charming that she fools most of the male characters, while woman can see right through her bull. Paul Rudd ( Ant-Man, Marvel ) does his job well but the direction of the film skips over important scenes that would have allowed us to see his full acting talents shine.

Evelyn

and Adam

The film focuses on the concept of manipulation as art. The character Adam is sculpted from a rough, passive, and forgettable beta to a take charge, sharp, handsome alpha. He has made changes on the outside of himself but is willing to sacrifice others to get what he wants. For the character Evelyn she does not seem to understand alpha males very much, instead her mental illness is showing through her decisions. She sees him as something bad while making hard decisions is apart of the alpha hierarchy. On the other hand, he has made some decisions that are not becoming of a modern man and he tends to lean more on a old fashion idea of getting what he wants even if a he hurts others in doing so. The film does not posit a solution to this problem at all, it just shows us a screwed up situation and nothing more.

Mediocre

Film

The cinematography is mediocre at best. There is nothing special here. The lighting, backgrounds, wardrobe, and set dressing are all fine for this kind of film. The film looks old like they where using film from the 90’s rather than digital video. In the movie xXx (2002) with Vin Diesel, that movie used film over digital video but it still looked very high quality and was colorized correctly. This movie The Shape of Things (2003) looks aged. The movie is really not good. The main idea behind the film is that we are suppose to care about the main protagonist enough to have some kind of emotional reaction to the plot twist in the end of the film. I have written many times here on this blog that audiences will not connect with a passive protagonist like the main character Adam in this film. So when we get to the point of the main plot twist, it comes of as empty and leaves you wanting for more. That was such a big risk for a Hollywood movie to take and in my opinion it failed. I was left with the feeling of “that’s it!? That’s the whole movie!?”. Some of the important scenes that would connect you to the character like Adam losing weight and getting a hair cut are happing off camera. So instead of seeing how he feels about the situation, we don’t get to see that at all, just accept the fact that the movie is jumping through time. I don’t recommend you watch this film. Watch Agora (2009) instead.

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