The Rules of Attraction **** (2002, James Van Der Beek, Ian Somerhalder, Shannyn Sossamon, Jessica Biel, Kip Pardue, Kate Bosworth) – Classic Movie Review 956

Producer-writer-director Roger Avary’s 2002 corrosive black comedy, based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis, author of American Psycho, is crazy tale of intertwining lives at college, centring on a frustrated love quartet.

James Van Der Beek stars as drug-dealing, womanising student Sean Bateman (the younger brother of American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman, though nothing is made of this) who owes a lot of money to fellow dealer Rupert Guest (Clifton Collins Jr) and is still mooning over his ex, Lauren Hynde (Shannyn Sossamon).

She’s saving herself for Victor Johnson (Kip Pardue), who is backpacking across Europe. But Sean is fancied by the handsome bisexual Paul Denton (Ian Somerhalder). Paul, who used to date Lauren, is attracted to Mitchell Allen (Thomas Ian Nicholas), who’s dating Candice (Clare Kramer) to prove to Paul that he’s not gay. So Sean loves Lauren, Paul loves Sean and Lauren may love Sean.

There is loads of bizarre stuff here, all delivered in brio style by Avery, with fine acting turns, especially by a game and inspired Van Der Beek. The antithesis of all those Animal House/American Pie-style American teen and college comedies, it relishes its lofty view of its characters, who still manage to remain involving, and even sympathetic, despite all their evident flaws.

Two brio sequences stand out: the college scenes shown in reverse order and Pardue’s madcap, speeded-up travel montage trip to Europe. European Swoosie Kurtz and Faye Dunaway have little to do as the bored rich moms, which is a pity because their bit’s fun.

Jessica Biel, Kate Bosworth, Colin Bain, Jay Baruchel, Joel Michaely, Russell Sams, Fred Savage and Eric Stoltz are also in the notable cast.

Casper Van Dien shot two scenes on the phone to James Van Der Beek as Patrick Bateman but they were cut because of content and film time.

Avary’s most famous work is Pulp Fiction. He shared the 1995 Best Original Screenplay Oscar with Quentin Tarantino. The Rules of Attraction is notable as the first studio movie to prove a reliable use of Apple’s Final Cut Pro editing system. Avary became a spokesperson for Final Cut Pro 3, appearing in Apple print and web ads worldwide. His film within the film, Glitterati (2004), used elements of Victor’s European trip and was shot entirely on digital video with just a crew of Avary and producer Greg Shapiro). In 2005, he purchased the rights to another Bret Easton Ellis novel, Glamorama, which is in development at Avary’s company for him to direct.

Avary says: ‘Bret Easton Ellis is a social satirist. I consider myself aligned with how he does things. Bret doesn’t write about that which he loves about the world. He writes about what disgusts him. You’d be a disturbed individual if you came out and said, “I love these characters”.’

He adds: ‘It does not matter to me if you hate the movie. What matters to me is if you are ambivalent. Anybody can do “thumbs up, thumbs down”. That’s the real problem with film criticism today. It’s been reduced to “I like it, I dislike it”. Criticism should be more of an examination of exactly why a film makes you feel the way you feel.’

He’s right, by the way.

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