Neil LaBute‘s Some Velvet Morning screened last night at The Tribeca Film Festival, and occasional HE correspondent Clayton Loulan sent along some impressions. “The film was shot over eight days (yes…days) in Brooklyn,” he begins, “and the question on everyone’s mind was will this film erase or mitigate the sins of LaBute’s Lakeview Terrace and The Wicker Man? The short answer is yes but the longer answer likely has to do with how the ending hits you.

Some Velvet Morning star Alice Eve, director-writer Neil LaBute beforre last night’s Tribeca Film Festival showing.

“In a chat with LaBute after the screening, he said he knows what people expect from him and was very conscious in the writing and directing of the film of both playing to expectations and giving people something else entirely. My feeling is that Velvet teeters on the brink of self-parody before pulling back on the wheel and flipping you the bird. You’ll either appreciate that or you won’t.

“It’s the story of the older Fred (Stanley Tucci) and the younger Velvet (Alice Eve), two ex-lovers who spend 83 minutes in conversation throughout what feels like every room of Velvet’s more than spacious apartment. Fred has left his wife and shows up with his bags packed and ready to move in with Velvet and start over. Velvet has moved on and just wants to have lunch with one of her friends. We begin to peel back the layers of their backstory. Battles ensue. Objects are broken. Insults fly. Their motivations shift and each party has equal chance to play the aggressor and the persecuted.

“Some Velvet Morning doesn’t feel as outwardly provocative as In The Company of Men and the scope is smaller, but more precise. This one plays like the scalpel to Men’s sledgehammer.”