Rules of Attraction Review
by Laura Clifford (laura AT reelingreviews DOT com)October 14th, 2002
THE RULES OF ATTRACTION
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At Camden College, where dope, partying and sex rule, Sean Bateman (James van der Beek, TV's "Dawson's Creek"), brother of American Psycho Patrick, is intrigued by the mysterious love letters he thinks are being left by Lauren (Shannyn Sossamon, "40 Days and 40 Nights"). Lauren's romantic thoughts are directed towards Victor (Kip Pardue, "Driven"), who's busy sleeping his way through Europe. Meanwhile, her ex, Paul Denton (Ian Somerhalder, "Life as a House"), is becoming inflamed by Sean in writer/director Roger Avary's ("Killing Zoe") adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis' "The Rules of Attraction."
This isn't your typical romantic roundeley. Roger Avary has taken Ellis' 1980's satire of debauched delinquents into the present day as a cruelly funny twist on teen comedy packed with inventive cinematic tricks and an ironically killer soundtrack. Both James van der Beek and Fred Savage (TV's "The Wonder Years") gleefully trash preconceptions in eye-opening performances.
The living dead who attend Camden College spend far more effort on things like The Dress to Get Screwed Party than classes. The film begins at the brutal end, with a drunken Lauren inadvertently starring in an amateur porn film after receiving a vicious snarl from a cynical Paul while Sean, declaring himself an emotional vampire, beads in on his next screw (Kate Bosworth, "Blue Crush").
A sunlit campus montage bridges us back to the story's beginning. Virginal Lauren tries to remain focused by looking at pictures in a medical book on venereal diseases, but when she goes to a Saturday lecture she finds the professor (Eric Stoltz) passed out amidst half empty wine bottles and half smoked joints. Leaving she runs into Sean, the college dealer, who is roused out of his usual base running inner commentary ('Should I screw her?' 'I'm hungry') to notice another human being for a change. He doesn't notice that Paul, who lures him to his room with an excuse to smoke a joint, is so aroused by him that he masturbates on an upper bunk bed, but vaguely agrees to Paul's continued invitations, unconsciously leading the lad along.
The story is stuffed with sidetracks, such as Sean's attempt to get paid back by a hilariously out-of-it Marc (Savage), and segues like his visit to the coke-addled townie (Clifton Collins, Jr., "Traffic") he owes and unwisely provokes. Paul's called home to visit mom (Faye Dunaway), but she and childhood friend Dick's mom (Swoozie Kurtz) wash pills down with Tom Collinses at a lunch Dick (Russell Sams in an outrageously memorable bit part) tips into "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" territory. A reference to Victor takes us on a mini-whirlwind trip to Europe that could stand on its own (Avary is reportedly considering fleshing this out into another feature), just before Victor returns to disillusion Lauren.
The soul-bereft students who attempt to stagger out of the cesspool all end in a state of rage that's at least more self aware than the vapid debauchery going on within. Innocence, most horribly embodied by the cafeteria girl who's really writing those purple notes to Sean, is not only lost, but trampled on.
Yet Avary makes all this nastiness entertaining. He connects his three main character's stories in the first scene using a rewind devise that crosscuts among them. Most inventive is a split screen presentation of Lauren and Sean's morning ministrations that ends with a walk down a school corridor that merges the shots into one. Songs such as "Six Different Ways," "Gentlemen Who Fell" and "Afternoon Delight" comment on the action while music offers such stylistic flourishes as cliched horror harpsichord. Avary gets some stellar turns from surprising casting, most particularly from van der Beek, who turns himself into a psychopath with a tantalizing possibility of redemption.
B+
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