In Which Neil LaBute Uses All His Friends

Undead Girl

by DICK CHENEY

Van Helsing
creator Neil Labute
Syfy

Sometimes I think of all the things I have said about the Syfy network - you know, how every property they touch turns to shit, how their production standards are reprehensibly low, how they never hire good actors or take chances on writers with actual talent or IPs that might cost actual money to acquire - and I feel bad.

Fortunately, you don't have to pay anyone to use Dracula. When I think of the best vampire stories ever told I think of Lucius Shepard's Beautiful Blood, George R.R. Martin's Fevre Dream and that's about it. Nothing great has ever been done in the genre, although the general concept of The Strain did have its moments. When I found out that for some reason playwright Neil LaBute, the original satirist/proponent of white misogyny's cultural impact, would be showrunning Van Helsing for Syfy I nearly spit out my Skinnygirl protein shake.

I was recently privileged to watch the debut of this series, and I take back everything I said about Neil Labute's recent output. Sure, some of his recent movies were kind of a shit factory, but directing was honestly never his strong suit. He burst on the cinematic stage with his classic comedy about two men trying to humiliate the same deaf woman, In the Company of Men. For this review, I rewatched the movie in its entirety and while it is definitely still amusing, making fun of people's cruelty is a lot less unexpected now and the whole project takes on a completely different tone.

Far better was LaBute's unacknowledged masterpiece, 1998's Your Friends & Neighbors. Showing off LaBute's unique talent for dialogue and using actresses like Nastassja Kinski and Catherine Keener in roles that would define or redefine their careers, Your Friends & Neighbors is the rare satire of white people that still holds up decades after it was originally written.

Since then LaBute has tried his hand at other genres with varying results. Television seems to suit him on a number of levels, even if we did not necessarily expect a series set in the apocalyptic future where vampires roam the earth from him. As per usual with most Syfy production, you will recognize precisely none of the cast. Vanessa Helsing (Kelly Overton) is the show's true relevation. She spends most of the show's pilot in some kind of coma, protected at a military installation by Axel (Jonathan Scarfe). Both actors are so much better performers than are featured on any other show this crumbling network has to offer.

Overton's experience on the stage suits LaBute. Van Helsing is extremely dialogue heavy, and it immediately feels so different than other serials in that every single scene depicts some kind of conflict or furthering of an agenda. In modern American life, this can seem somewhat farcical, since people are not always trying to get one over on each other, but applying LaBute's moral philosophy to this fantasy environment gives it a noir feel that is sorely missing from other depictions of the undead concept.

A group of survivors led by John (the brilliant David Cubitt) looks for refuge at the installation, where John seems to have previously served. Sabotage of the base's exterior defenses allows a group of vampires to reduce the group's numbers, and Helsing is attacked as she lays prone on the table. This act wakes her to consciousness, and she figures out that she is the reason the group has come – to offer her to Dracula dead or alive.

Because of my current resemblance to Dracula, I have been waiting for him to be portrayed in the fashion to which I have become accustomed: hagiography. LaBute was constantly being misunderstand in his plays as he tried to push the bounds of satire. Slaying the kind of bourgeois inanity required a more extreme approach — the entire point of the stage is push our boundaries of what is possible. If LaBute can bring this perspective to series television and a popular myth, he will have a show better than any Syfy has featured in its history. Heck, he already does.

The best part of vampire lore is the castle. It is the most nuanced form of satire the genre has to offer, where man must directly choose whether or not he is a slave to something greater or an independent creature. Lucius Shepard's great invention in his cult novel Beautiful Blood was to explain what exactly human beings receive from vampires, so that we can understand the story as less than a master/slave allegory. In the book's most powerful scene, the vampire protagonist agonizes over all the different types of love he has experienced as a human and undead, forcing himself to choose the most appealing kind.

While parts of Van Helsing are still kind of cheesy-Walking Dead esque survival motifs, there is a hint of something darker once Vanessa Helsing reveals she can turn vampires back into human beings through the manifestation of her own blood. This leads to several complications, the sort of disturbed emotionality that we are used to seeing LaBute unpack so expertly. Sometimes you try to tell a new type of story and you get Mel Gibson's Christ disaster, but other conflations of genre are absolutely innervating.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to this Recording.

In Which They Never Got Me Like They Got Him

In the Company of the Queen

by ALEX CARNEVALE

Just Wright

dir. Sanaa Hamri

93 minutes

In 1997, Neil LaBute's directorial debut In the Company of Men hit American theaters. It upset many people, and is considered a disturbing film in general. Aaron Eckhart and Matt Malloy play corporate types who decide to seduce a deaf woman who works in their office and dump her at the same time to crush her spirit. As usual, LaBute's real intentions were submerged beneath the crudity of the film's finer moments, such as Eckhart's character politely informing the disabled Christine (Stacy Edwards) upon revealing his deception that "I was going to let you down easy, but I can't keep a straight face."

Little did LaBute and company know that thirteen years later their signature satire of corporate nastiness would grow prescient. Or perhaps they did realize this, but since LaBute's about as popular as an outbreak of herpes these days, it just hasn't been said enough. With enough time to appreciate In the Company of Men, it was high time for a remake, preferably with a new ethnicity, like The Karate Kid.

if you're going to remake a movie and make it less racist, start with 'gone with the wind' Moroccan music video director Sanaa Hamri has done exactly that with Just Wright. The film, penned by screenwriter Michael Elliot, concerns two women (physical therapist Queen Latifah and professional seductress Paula Patton) who decide to seduce a basketball player and see how far they can take it. It turns out they can take it very far, and no one will think anything of their behavior.  

In the Company of Men featured the overbearing, controlling Eckhart in his first major role. LaBute's alpha-male demon was a parody of every me-first dickhead that worked in offices across the country. His negative influence forced a weaker, less attractive colleage into a misogynist gag to make a deaf women feel wanted. In contrast, Just Wright's version of Eckhart's domineering alpha is Patton, whose lies are a lot sweeter and more easily told. If you are able to ignore the fact that Patton is married to Robin Thicke, she is every bit the mirror image clone of the overly sexual Eckhart.

Paula Patton's greatest desire is to marry a rich basketball player. She focuses on the New Jersey Nets for some reason, perhaps not realizing they boast one of the lowest payrolls in the league and will play the next three seasons in Newark. Her godsister is the eponymous Leslie Wright; a woman with a "good personality" who has serious problems meeting the right man. They all think she's a cool pal, perhaps because (or in spite of) her Nets gear.

Anyone who's seen Queen's video for "U.N.I.T.Y." or the comedy she made with Jimmy Fallon more than once knows she can act; her mid-90s FOX sitcom Living Single was among the most underappreciated shows of the decade. She might as well have been a baby when the current proliferation of Tyler Perry-esque comedies began in earnest, and it must be rewarding to see she's on her way to being something of a star in the discipline.

The two conspirators of Just Wright love each other, and when Queen craftily scores an invite to the birthday party of Nets superstar point guard Scott McKnight (Common) by claiming she listens to Joni Mitchell during a "coincidental" meeting at a gas station, this physical therapist is only too pleased to help her friend try to hit on him. And game it up Patton does, basically doing her best Mystery impression and getting Common's attention right away. Soon the two are dating their balls off while Queen waits on the sidelines for the relationship between her superficial friend and her favorite ballplayer to break up.

The basic flaw of In the Company of Men was that no woman would ever fall for the collective charm of these two meatheads. Well, Common's Scott McKnight is the biggest pawn in cinema since Searching for Bobby Fischer. The two women don't bother to fight over him. After Common tears his knee in the All-Star Game, Patton bails on the relationship at the first sign of physical weakness, and Queen steps in to rehabilitate Scott's injured leg. As Queen's Misery-esque obsession grows and deepens, highlighted by her giving him an inspirational and somewhat scary speech before a Game 7 against the Heat, Patton regrets dumping Common and asks him to consider getting back together.

Just Wright argues that women are even better at manipulation and deception than men, because their lies are more likely to be believed. Patton breaks up with Common by leaving the engagement ring he gave her (despite disapproval from Common's mom, Phylicia Rashad) with a note that says Sorry. Common becomes bereft of all human feelings, he can't even be bothered to return Dwight Howard's texts. He shouts at Queen Latifah, who makes no effort to defend her friend and yells at Patton for dumping the salty basketball player. It's a strange development, because instead of telling Common that maybe it's for the best, Queen instantly turns into his every second-of-the-day BFF in order to completely reassure him of his masculinity.

The cruelty of their gag is hammered home in an unforgettable scene. Having completed the better part of his rehab, Common taps on piano keys in one room of his magnificent house. ("Beware of men with secret rooms," Patton tells Queen as she giggles about her fiancée.) Queen approaches with some smores, which Common has been completely unaware existed in the world until this moment. They share a tidy snack. Later, when he gets back together with Patton, she asks him to close the door because his piano playing is becoming too loud. This is B.F. Skinner methodology with the added benefit of inspiring an eating disorder in one of the finest rappers of our time.

After getting dumped by a particularly salacious vertebrate, Neil LaBute realized that the only useful part of love was common interests. He's hammered this home in a succession of ever-worsening films, the catty masterpiece Your Friends and Neighbors, the pathetic but vaguely compelling Nurse Betty, and the movie that made Nicolas Cage's hairline an undeniable fact of life, The Wicker Man. In all of these efforts LaBute tries to reclaim the power he presumably lost when a woman told him he was too hairy. The understated message of In the Company of Men is that some people feel entitled to love.

Queen becomes so important to Common that he restores the classic but broken car she drives from New Jersey into New York to serve at his beck and call. She begins living in his house. They sleep together. He gets her job offers from every NBA organization imaginable, calls come in from legendary trainers like Tim Walsh and Aaron Nelson. Instead of thanking him, she berates him for even considering the idea of taking Paula Patton back.

The most magical thing you can do to anyone is reject them. The burn sticks in some secret place, always ready to flare up again at the slightest hint of acceptance. Objects as innocent as a knee brace or a loaf of bread take on an added significance. Unlike In the Company of Men, Just Wright features a happier ending, suggesting that when women play games with men, it's a lot less mean-spirited. This is probably true enough, but it's not very heartwarming.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording. He tumbls here. He last wrote in these pages about Iron Man 2.

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In Which We Are All Merely Objects

Our Friends And/Or Neighbors

by ALEX CARNEVALE

Neil LaBute can be convicted of most crimes. He's a satirist without a sense of judiciousness, he's terrible with stereotypes, he's made the ninth worst Nicolas Cage movie ever (The Wicker Man) and he also became a Mormon. His films are intentionally provocative; so was Oleanna and it's still a hell of a night at the theatre. But he made the best film of the 1990s, so he gets a pass from me.

Any man can be redeemed from an eternity of questionable artistic decisions with a masterpiece. Because LaBute wrote and directed Your Friends and Neighbors, therefore he can sit at my dinner table. He can partake of my food, and penetrate my v. His ugly goatee and Brigham Young education are no barrier to my call.

Your Friends and Neighbors begins with an innocent meeting of old friends; two couples, Amy Brenneman and Aaron Eckhart, Ben Stiller and Catherine Keener. In a quiet moment before he and his wife leave, Ben makes a (goateed) pass at Amy. He makes her write her number in a book, and kisses her hand. It is sort of childish, but everything about a blind pass is so.

Eckhart's wife has reason to worry. Her husband can't generate a big, fat boner for her. We understand her deep pain. Isn't that the greatest nightmare? To bed down for good with a soft load that won't eject?

Naturally she's wistful for what a goatee would feel like down there. And Stiller's character is an artist — anyone who would date an artist is either a lesbian or a fool, but she is the latter and she wants his artistic ways inside of her. It turns out the girl he goes with, Catherine Keener is a lesbian, or at least bi like Oprah. She is sweet, cold and cutting, like a crisp glass of lemonade.

For example: Eckhart makes his wife a gift of an antique watch that doesn't keep time. A sort of bracelet. Ben says, "Why would you go around wearing a watch that keeps no time?" His paramour, the lovely Keener, says, "Why else would you if it wasn't on purpose?" She understands the gift. Lesbians love presents.

Later, Eckhart is telling us how 'no one can make me come like I make me come.' Love of masturbation: it's an affliction. It nearly cost us the Louisiana Purchase, or so I'm told.

Eckhart's good friend is the pure, guiltless embodiment of his onanistic shame. Jason Patric plays him, in the finest role of his career. Patric is a medical doctor, and as we all secretly believe of all docs, he's a fink. He's a shithead with a larcenous tongue who favors women the way Cesar Millan favors a cat.

For shits and giggles he up and uses another doc's letterhead to inform a salicious ex that she was on some poor patient's lists of partners who might have, probably did, contract AIDS. So there is a male spectrum of behavior, yet it all boils down to what LaBute really believes of men — that they are still homo sapien, still running around in circles like Neanderthals, full of deceit with no good reason for it.

And what of the women? LaBute is accused of misogyny, and that critique is sometimes just, but surely not in the drama of his electric debut, In the Company of Men. It is the greatest anti-male film of all time, and it seems to be practically a true story. That film was about two enterprising blokes who wished to dually seduce a lovely deaf girl — and then dump her hard, for funsies. How anyone could take offense at such a scheme is beyond me...when you hear about a film in which a murder takes place, do you cry for that victim? LaBute is interested in killing more than people, he prefers to murder ideas: the more sacrosanct, the better. Ideas and Nic Cage's career.

But in LaBute, are women simply objects? He makes Keener's love interest (Nastassja Kinski) a slender artist's assistant, the most beautiful thing in three states. They stare longingly at what's on the wall. So your greatest hopes, fears — Neil is intent on making a joke of them. He has static people crying out to one another. He's saying, They need not cry. We can see their sadness in their faces, like a close shave, or protruding zit.

A modest housewife with an impotent husband, Brenneman is willowly, unsure, weak. She is uncertain of what she wants other than hard penis, which isn't an outlandish request. All the men she's with in the film ask "Is it me?" when they can't produce a throbbing member. She can't make them solid. She's herself a ghost, only good for passing through. This is when LaBute is at his meanest — when he believes he's being merciful.

The most famous scene in Your Friends & Neighbors occurs in the muddy heat of a sauna, where the three men exchange stories of best fucks. Humans always remember the best of something, it's usually the only reason for optimism and continued good cheer. In mindsplitting detail Jason Patric (he of Speed 2: When Sandra Bullock Didn't Resemble The Grinch Who Stole Christmas) recalls his finest sex:

We cannot feel for a monster, or the Victor Frankensteins who brought him to life. So what is left for the audience to surrender to? We are amazed, or delighted, or disgusted, or equal parts of each. Then we come to it, just as suddenly, as though the answer comes drifting in out of the steam. We made this thing, so it is ours to answer for.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording. He tumbls here.

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