Top Box Office Movies - The Rules of Attraction

The Rules of Attraction (2002) Lion Gate Films
1 hr. 50 mins.
Starring: James Van Der Beek, Jessica Biel, Ian Somerhalder, Shannyn Sossamon, Kate Bosworth, Kip Pardue, Thomas Ian Scott
Directed by: Roger Avary

The Rules of Attraction

Rating:

E-MAIL FRANK OCHIENG

Photo: Lions Gate Films

Over the years, there have been many films trying their best to capture the essence of decadence within the world of young adult life. In writer-director Roger Avary’s (Killing Zoe) exhilarating but disjointed college drama The Rules of Attraction, he sets out to paint a seductive and chaotic love triangle against a backdrop of matriculating angst. Avary, who threw his hat into the ring by previously co-writing the hip and haughty Pulp Fiction, tries to spin some provocative magic by helming this furiously over-indulgent and twisted celluloid soap opera for the teen set. Suffice to say, The Rules of Attraction is a convoluted and passionless narrative that has no redeeming quality despite its juicy drug-fueled storyline and the sprinkling of some of today’s hot television commodities partaking in the self-serving frivolity.

Avary’s big screen adaptation is based upon Bret Easton Ellis’ super-charged novel. The movie is set at a cozy liberal arts college in scenic New England during the Reagan-era of the 1980’s. The main protagonist of interest is drug-dealing dreamboat Sean Bateman (TV’s Dawson Creek star James Van Der Beek) who spearheads the madness behind the aimless bout with sex, violence, and substance abuse. Sean, the younger sibling of American Psycho serial stud killer Patrick Bateman, is a deranged drifter amongst the carefree carnage practiced at Camden College. A complicated three-way love affair develops when coke-sniffing cutie Lauren (Shannyn Sossamon, A Knight’s Tale) can’t fight her attraction for the good-looking and reckless Sean. In the meanwhile, the addicted Lauren cannot help but also pledge her heart to ex-boyfriend Paul Owen (Ian Somerhalder), an attractive bisexual boy immersed in his own turmoil.

The Rules of Attraction does its best to parlay itself as a stinging sardonic satire on campus life while showing us what the real education is all about within the realm of indecision and anxiety that young folks face just before they break out into the real world. The film’s message is somewhat telling in its titillation but Avary never let this complex revelation settle in our souls or that of his character’s inquisitive makeup. Instead, he bluntly engages in the dizzying theatrics that complicate the storyline therefore ruining the film’s dramatic pulse. Some of the distracting cinematic trickery that Avary uses to stimulate this treacherous tale includes mixing up the chronological scenes, highlighting the mood with jittery camera angles, and using the split screen method to add some measure of momentum. The juiced-up soundtrack is even pumped up a notch or two in order to add some tension to the dastardly dysfunctional proceedings. All these gimmicky filmmaking tics may have helped Avary’s aforementioned revered cult classic Pulp Fiction become the sensational audacious gem it did, but for this particular outing the results are nothing more than a botched, pseudo-hip piece of wayward pubescent propaganda.

Van Der Beek has tremendous fun playing an unsympathetic creep whose only motivation for survival is embroiled in the anticipation of his naughtiness. The crazed stare and overall glazed look of this sinning and soulless individual is revealing to a certain degree. As a warped triangular love story among lost young idealism overtaken by the excesses of taboo tendencies, The Rules of Attraction fails to gain any different ground in the shock value department. There’s no decent attempt to explain or expound upon why these college-bound characters are confused or aimlessly cavort with the demons that plague them endlessly. The storytelling devices present a who’s who of notable players willing to tap into the vulnerability factor (for instance, Jessica Biel of TV’s 7th Heaven as a revved-up party girl) but everything here is mere static cling of a frenzied film trying to invoke some liberating caustic entertainment.

The Rules of Attraction should have been less flashy and flighty and more deep-seeded in its raucous tone. No doubt teens will flock to this nihilistic and rollicking showcase and soak up this hollow hedonistic character study of pretty people doing unfathomable activities in an effort to create an edgy portrait of despair and delusion. However, Avary cannot quite conjure up a competent daunting and daring expose’ of a slick and wily exposition designed to add any credence to this tiresome genre of the young demographic looking to escape life’s miseries by getting laid and maintaining a drug-induced stupor.

If anything, the filmmakers behind this pandering project certainly know the rules of attraction especially when it comes to exploiting a willing and ready-made MTV crowd of hormonal exhibitionists hoping to revel in the vapid mayhem that this energetic dud gladly offers without reservation. Over-stylized in its production value and underdeveloped in the cynicism department, this inflated and laden vehicle reminds us that school is out both literally and figuratively.

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Frank Ochieng
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