Your Friends & Neighbours

There are comedies where the mood suddenly shifts, causing the laughter to catch in your throat. And then there are comedies with humor so dark and bitter that the very idea of laughing barely crosses your mind. »Your Friends & Neighbors« undoubtedly falls into this second, exceedingly rare category. Neil LaBute himself describes his second feature film as “a modern immoral morality play,” directly alluding to the morality play genre. Yet his story, centered on three college friends bound by a strange love-hate relationship, and on the three women in their lives, bears no resemblance to a traditional morality play. There is no clear line between good and evil; nothing guides the audience toward the “right” path. LaBute simply confronts us with the destructive side of human relationships. None of the six characters is innocent. They are all responsible for their own unhappiness and that of the others, yet they are simultaneously victims of the situation. In doing so, LaBute and his ensemble pull off a remarkable feat: we recognize ourselves in these characters and empathize with them, even as their behavior and choices appall us.