Some Velvet Morning

This being a film by Neil LaBute (In the Company of Men), viewers can count on being taught some brutal “truths” about the creative ways that men psychologically abuse and control women, as well as how women implicate themselves in said mistreatment. Coming across like a filmed stage play, with everything stripped down to the basic elements of dramatic structure, Some Velvet Morning—claustrophobically shot in a New York apartment—features only two characters, sleazy lawyer Fred (Stanley Tucci) and his supposed former mistress, Velvet (Alice Eve), whose professional life seems even shadier than Fred's. Velvet hasn't seen Fred in four years, but one day he just appears at her doorstep and proceeds to tell her, in annoyingly dawdling, wordy fashion, that he's left his marriage and wants to suddenly reboot their long-dead romance. The disturbingly single-minded Fred doesn't make much headway, and the two former lovers eventually are caught up in a verbal fencing match of awkwardly executed parries and thrusts that leads (unsurprisingly) to physical violence—although not without a cynical LaBute twist. As always, the filmmaker is an expert at creating a creeping sense of social unease; however, the perversely ironic ending feels more like a cop-out gimmick than any sort of darkly comic revelation. Optional. (M. Sandlin)