#34 — In the Company of Men (Neil LaBute, 1997)
In the Company of Men unquestionably depicts vile, misogynistic behavior, but does the film itself traffic in the same abject hatefulness? That’s the question that dogged Neil LaBute’s feature directorial debut when it was released. The film follows a pair of corporate drones on an extended business trip to a branch office. In order to chip away at their boredom, and to exact some sort of cosmic retribution against women who they feel have wronged them in the past, they agree to romance and then dump a pretty deaf secretary they meet in this distant workplace. They do it as a warped competition and a casual exercise in cruelty. This plotline, and LaBute’s unblinking depiction of it, left some viewers feeling as emotionally buffeted as the victim in the film, as if the writer-director had crossed over from creating his story to perpetrating his own crime against women. The aggression in the film was so potently depicted, that it was admittedly difficult to differentiate the artist from the art.

Still, to condemn LaBute strikes me as a misreading of his film. For one thing, the tag misogynistic is too narrow of an interpretation of LaBute’s dim appraisal of humanity. The mastermind of this callous scheme, played with a toxic mix of charisma and malevolence by Aaron Eckhart in a skillful performance he has yet to match, approaches everyone with a serpentine hostility. He can’t even page through a company newsletter without telling anyone within earshot how much he loathes each of the individuals pictured within. He’s even a bully to his co-conspirator, his overtures of camaraderie laced with assertions of personal power. Further, for the film to be aligned with its central character’s views, that character needs to be positioned as the hero of the piece, a man who spreads agony for a purpose, preferably one that introduces some small measure of sympathy for him. LaBute occasionally makes it seem like the film may drift this way, but it never does, resolutely sticking to its thesis–the ongoing thesis present throughout the bulk of LaBute’s output–that most people who engage in monstrous behavior do so because they are, at heart, monsters. Man’s inhumanity to man is not an unfortunate digression or a sad aberration. In Labute’s view, it’s closer to a default state. Some directors seem genuinely turned on by the brutal behavior they depict (let’s have a hand for Lars von Trier, ladies and gentlemen), but Labute is not in their number. He seems as appalled as anyone. That’s why he dare not look away.

In the Company of Men is caustically funny, cautionary in its appraisal of the world, and bold in subtle, unexpected ways. LaBute, perhaps thinking of the power of the theater, often places his camera squarely in front of a scene and lets it play out without edits or other cinematic tactics. It represents a tremendous trust in his actors and in the script he’s crafted. There are so many ways to cue the audience, to whip up indignation and high dudgeon. He refrains, allowing the vividness of the work itself, the words themselves, do the heavy lifting. That may contribute to some of the mixed feelings and confusion about the author’s intent, but it also makes for a tougher, more satisfying film.