Nasty Neil LaBute tells it like it is. Again.

Listening to Neil LaBute in person, the impression is of a smart, self-deprecating guy you’d happily have as your friend and neighbour - one of the more laconic, easy-going college tutors you may have come across. But it’s only when you see the majority of his stage and screen work that you slowly realise you’re in the company of a man regularly accused, on a good day, of misogyny and wholesale misanthropy when his critics really lay into him.

LaBute’s first two features, In The Company Of Men and Your Friends & Neighbours, focus almost entirely on the humiliation, exploitation and capriciousness that men and women subject each other to on a daily basis. LaBute’s latest play, The Mercy Seat, even uses 9/11 as the catalyst to explore getting away with adultery. "I would rather my movies piss people off than have a mediocre response," LaBute says. "I like to be prodded with a stick and I like to prod back."

No change then with The Shape Of Things, LaBute’s play now (barely) adapted for the screen with its original cast (including Paul Rudd and Rachel Weisz) and all its pitilessly observed, barbed gender warfare intact. Art student Evelyn romances nerdy, chubby Adam, slowly transforming him into something of a hip stud. Inevitably, what appears to be the milk of human kindness soon curdles with a dramatic denouement wholly consistent with LaBute’s low view of humanity.

As a critique on art and the artlessness of people allowing themselves to be duped by a superficial culture, however, one wonders if LaBute’s characters really hold up as people and not merely mouthpieces for wilfully provocative stances. LaBute remains unapologetic. "Pushing buttons," he says. "It’s kind of saying here’s something that might engage you. You shouldn’t just sit there, stare at it and walk away." Leigh Singer 28 November 03

The Shape Of Things, on selected release 28 November 03.