Writer-director Neil LaBute returns to his familiar theme of love, betrayal, and manipulation in his new movie "The Shape of Things." It was that same theme that garnered him critical acclaim and put him on the map in 1997 with "The Company of Men."

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Movie Preview: 'The Shape Of Things'

LaBute delves into the sexual politics of men and women in "The Shape Of Things," but his game of cat-and-mouse is interesting in a been-there, done-that kind of way.

Paul Rudd plays Adam, a college student at a small California school. He's overweight, nerdy and emotionally immature. One day while at his part-time job as a security guard at a museum, he meets Evelyn (Rachel Weisz), an art student who speaks psycho-babble about an artist's right to be provocative, outspoken, and controversial. When Adam meets her, she's spray painting genitals over a Greek statue's fig leaf.

Eve falls for Adam (yes, the Adam and Eve thing is intentional), which begins the unraveling of LaBute's spooled plot. She's a beautiful woman who doesn't need a chubby guy-pal, so what's her reason for the sudden attraction? She goes about remaking Adam. He loses weight, gets rid of the glasses, and even has cosmetic surgery.

His friends are overwhelmed, both with Eve who gives a quasi-lecture to Adam's dense best friend, Phillip (Frederick Weller), and Adam's sudden transformation.

At times, the film displays a conversation that might be played out in a graduate thesis seminar: What is art? What constitutes art? And why do we care?

There's the typical boy meets girl, but former girl now likes new boy when Jenny (Gretchen Mol) suddenly finds Adam attractive. Here's where the audience gets hit over the head with the superficiality lecture. When Adam was a dumpy schmoe, Jenny liked him as a friend, but became engaged to his better- looking roommate, Phillip. She tells Adam he's " a lovely person." Adam tells her she may have well just said he was "gay." Now that he looks like he's ripped from a page of GQ, Jenny suddenly is ready to break her engagement for the chance at a French kiss.

The seeds of manipulation are planted when Adam discovers that Evelyn has met with Phillip. Sounding like a complicated soap opera? It is.

LaBute compares his Evelyn's remaking of Adam as a sort of "Pygmalion," even referencing Henry Higgins, but the darkness of this story would better be reflected in Dr. Frankenstein. Perhaps there would've been more reason to sit on the edge of your seat had LaBute created some real tension. Adam's redux is a bit mild. Even his nose job is barely noticeable and having him throw out his lumber jacket for a Hilfiger encrusted golf doesn't create any noticeable drama.

LaBute originated this story in London where it was a stage play, then it played off-Broadway. The four actors originated the characters in the play they now bring to the screen.

There are trappings in taking a stage play and turning in loose onto film. There isn't much different save for a few outdoor shots that makes this film cinematic. One of the final scenes of the movie drags in a monologue delivered in a college auditorium by Evelyn.

Cinematic devices of action and possibly flashback could have made for a more dramatic finish.

The actors, especially Rudd, seem like they've played the characters too much and too long. Adam is sometimes so unbelievably nerdy you wonder if he's not Pee Wee Herman's long-lost twin

LaBute accomplishes his feat of looking relationships square in the face and forcing some philosophic questions. There's also a killer soundtrack by Elvis Costello.

At a little more than 90 minutes, the film is hardly a waste of time. You just have to wade through a lot of wet paint to get to true art.