90
Disarmingly funny new film with a doozy of a twist ending... may be his best, cruelest, most vital act of confrontation yet.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
30
This might be the edgiest film of the year -- if the year were 1982.
100
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
LaBute is coming of age as an artist, and his future looks brighter than I ever would have suspected a year ago. Enfant terrible or not, he's starting to become a substantial figure in American film.
30
Washington Post by Desson Thomson
At best, the movie is a problematic chamber piece; at worst, a misdirected, slightly misanthropic pretension.
63
Strikes me as more of a thesis piece than anything LaBute has put his name to thus far. Its characters don't seem to be people as much as they are stand-ins for ideas.
75
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
What starts out as a talky, modern-day re-interpretation of "Pygmalion" (Henry Higgins is explicitly mentioned) turns into something heart-wrenchingly bleak.
50
Despite an empowered female protagonist, manages in its own way to be as misogynous as "In the Company of Men."
60
TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh
Combined with the Mamet-lite dialogue, a medley of all-too-deliberate pauses, smug literary allusions and calculatedly careless repetitions of the word "thingie" that obscure the meaning hidden in supposedly meaningless prattle, the result is a chic, vitriolic polemic that's as irritating as it means to be provocative.
75
LaBute never loses sight of what shape he wishes this crafty story to take. In the end, his aim is true.
75
The cast helps enliven what could otherwise come off as a treatise. All four actors played these roles during the play's off-Broadway run.