Rules of Attraction, The (2002)

Starring: James Van Der Beek, Jessica Biel, Shannyn Sossamon, Kip Pardue, Ian Somerhalder, Kate Bosworth
Director: Roger Avary

Rating: R

Studio: Lions Gate Films

Review Posted: 10.14.02

Spoilers: Minor

Rating: 1.5/4

By Sara M. Fetters.

It is hard to write anything about The Rules of Attraction without feeling like I need to run away and take a shower. Not a bath, after sitting through this hyperactive mess of a movie I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to take a bath again, but getting clean will definitely be a priority.

So, with that in mind, here it goes…

Based on the novel by Brett Easton Ellis, The Rules of Attraction as adapted and directed by Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avary is not a very good movie. In many ways it is the equivalent of a cinematic train wreck where style collides head on into pretension. It is a film about ugly, depressing, repulsive and self-indulgent people. That wouldn’t be so bad save for the fact that the film around them is every bit as ugly and self-indulgent as the characters that inhabit it.

Attraction revolves around three characters: Sean Bateman (James Van Der Beek in a Dawson-shattering performance), the brother of American Psycho’s Jason Bateman and currently on the same path to become a desensitized monster; Lauren Hynde (Shannyn Sossamon, A Knight's Tale), a sex-obsessed virgin saving herself for Victor (Kip Pardue, Driven) who’s recently been whoring himself around Europe; and Paul Denton (Ian Somerhalder), a disillusioned gay student searching for true love – or at least the next good screw.

I’ve never read any of Ellis’ work, so I don’t know how closely Avary’s script follows the novel. What I do know is that if the novel was half as fragmented as the film is, it couldn’t have been very readable. Attraction is structured more as a series of vignettes and clips than pieces of the same film. That wouldn’t be a problem if more of the scenes were worth watching, but what we get is a steady stream of chaos and depravity that as the film goes on becomes more and more unbearable.

Which is a shame, for there is much about the film to admire. Some of the scenes, like the opening introduction to the three protagonists where the film stock continually rewinds itself back through the action we’ve just seen to suddenly stop and resume play but now upon another character inhabiting the same scene. There is also one of the most graphically unsettling suicides ever put on film, but it so effectively demonstrates the stark reality of the situation, and is so amazingly played, that the final effect of the deceased student floating in a tub of blood is devastatingly effective.

But a viewer can only take so much depravity before it all becomes one giant blur. And that’s all Attraction ultimately is – one giant blur. Sure individual moments or performances (Van Der Beek stands out in particular) stand out, but the whole mess is directed with such fluid narcissism that it becomes increasingly unwatchable. There’s no point to it all, and while that could be Avary’s and Ellis’ argument, that doesn’t mean I want it jammed down my throat to the point where I’m gagging for air.

TOP