The Rules of Attraction

Synopsis: Love, sex, drugs and death at Ivy League Camden College.

The Rules of Attraction is a sexy, graphic trip through the empty lives of a group of wealthy, way nihilistic college students in America. In many ways, predominantly visual, it is an extraordinary film. Canadian writer/director Roger Avary (co-writer of Pulp Fiction) claims his film is concerned with "the death of romance". It certainly lacks any fluff in its depiction of intense love offset by endemic shallowness for which stories by Bret Easton Ellis (whose 1988 novel this is based upon) are infamous (eg Mary Harron's American Psycho, 2000).

Ellis’s writing explores, flays more like, themes of wasted, privileged youth. Rules continues in this vein following Camden College pretties Lara, Lauren, Paul and Brad through couplings, parties, gay issues, drugs, booze, suicide et al. Yes we’ve seen it before but this time Avary does a slick job of messing with our heads through preposterous use of backward running film, split screen, lightning-fast extended montage and a hammer-hard soundtrack. Clever too is his use of James Van Der Beek as a drug runner. He subverts this actor’s usual down-homeness with a role laced with confusion, bitter anger and arrogance. Arrogance underscores much of the movie. Arrogant people are tough to come at. Their pain in the film is mostly self-inflicted and, any hangover sufferer knows, they can expect no mercy from us.

Rules of Attraction portrays characters we have some difficulty caring for. This is not to say we aren’t intrigued by their situations and dynamics. For those of us who are attracted to danger and stimulation largely for stimulation’s sake, the story is one we would like to be part of. I enjoyed this slick, excessive film as much for its believable account of boy missing girl and boy missing boy and girl missing boy as for the original way the director has depicted it all. The soundtrack could be a best-seller and even the final credit titles are quite fun. Look out for Avary and producer Greg Shapiro’s future project. They’ve optioned another Bret Easton Ellis work, Glamorama.

"It’s not an amoral experience. It’s not even nihilistic, although it has nihilism in it. At the end of the day, it’s all made to push an extremely moral point of view". Roger Avary

Points of interest:
* James Van Der Beek’s head becoming narrower and longer as the film proceeds.
* Russell Sams as Richard/Dick in the briefest of roles. Some of the funniest, insanely over-confident acting I’ve seen in a while. I doubt he’s on screen more than five or six minutes.
* The best depiction of a suicide I’ve yet seen. Moving and horrifying.
* Knockout soundtrack.

 

 

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