The Rules of AttractionPeople are enslaved by their rituals and the pursuit of their desires, in spite of these routines being devoid of meaning or self-destructive. The Rules of Attraction is adapted from the novel of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis, and follows three college students in their respective existential crises. Sean Bateman (James van der Beek) is a scumbag drug dealer, whose good looks captures the attentions of both the comparatively reserved virgin, Lauren (Shannyn Sossamon), and her now openly bisexual ex-boyfriend, Paul (Ian Somerhalder).
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The Rules of Attraction opens with a trio of vignettes told in medias res, building to the ill-fated and inevitable conclusion to the "love triangle" between Sean, Lauren, and Paul. Each of the three protagonists have sought a means to escape from their spiritual prisons after their narrow brush with depth of feeling--and failed. But what makes these three protagonists the exception at Camden College is that at least they tried--in their own flimsy ways--to find some meaning to their lives, even if it all ends with a whimper. Time is a constant motif in The Rules of Attraction, especially how the characters are trapped by and within it. The film often includes scenes played in reverse, as if the characters could go back and undo the bad decisions in their lives--in most cases, they just repeat them anyway. Even the ending has a semblance of "time travel" to it, as if even the movie's creators were looking for the faintest glimmer of hope of egress for these doomed glitterati from this cycle of decadence and oblivion, not letting something as incidental as "continuity" get in the way. Lauren begins the film's narration and recalls how before she left Camden, she lost her virginity to a "townie", despite having a crush on a vapid drama major named Victor (Kip Pardue), and that she was "saving herself" for him. Her first time is a debasing affair; her surrogate for Victor films her while someone else date rapes her and then involuntarily regurgitates on her--she says with the bitterest irony that "I always knew my first time would be like this". Lauren is such a perfectionist that she misses opportunities; worse, she inevitably trades off her desires for pitiful substitutes. She is a bad judge of character all around, and despite the torch she carries for Victor, she becomes convinced that Sean might be a good alternative--ignorant of the advice of her slutty roommate, Lara (Jessica Biel), that he is a drug dealer. (It is with no small degree of irony that she chastises Lauren on this point while they both snort cocaine.) Lauren carries on a pseudo-affair with one of her teachers, Lance Lawson (Eric Stoltz), who compels her to give him fellatio, claiming that it "can't hurt her GPA". She is a victim of her own impossible standards, and resents herself for them, and subsequently punishes herself for it by allowing herself to be humiliated. When Victor finally makes his late entrance into the film--as an ostensible "fourth protagonist" due to his name getting a title like the other three--he can hardly be blamed for "betraying" Lauren; she's built up a fantasy version of him in her head, like Paul does with Sean, and Sean with Lauren. This pseudo-protagonist and his outlandish vacation in Europe--amounting to nothing more than sex, drugs, and partying with DJs and models--is narrated by Victor rapid fire as a video montage that races by at high speed. (The story goes that director Roger Avery edited this together from actual footage of Kip Pardue remaining in character on location in Europe and living out a licentious lifestyle, and that it was later compiled into a private film called Glitterati.)
Paul is filled with an unquenchable cynicism for the superficial world he has to live in. His all-consuming resentment of it is evident when he is at dinner with his mother, Eve (Faye Dunaway), and the deepest thoughts she can muster are about the importance of her next car being blue. After Paul is violently tossed out of another college boy's room for making unwanted advances, he comments about time being immutable--a constant force that can not be altered, like "Manifest Destiny". He scornfully decries that there is no such thing as "luck", and that everything in time is "preordained". Paul is lying to himself to stifle his pain; when he mistakenly interprets Sean's momentary attention for flirtation, he lights up with romantic excitement and looks for excuses to get Sean alone, fantasizing about him while they smoke pot. It is implied that Paul was previously closeted about his homosexuality, dating Lauren before coming out. Paul has instead become a "closeted romantic", publicly feigning indifference about love through acerbic wit, yet beaming while he primps in front of the mirror before his "date" with Sean. Sean narrates that he is an "emotional vampire", yet it is Paul who has more in common with these Gothic, predatory creatures--aside from being pale and fashionable. Paul's true motivation is to find someone else who he can seduce into homosexuality. It isn't enough for him to be with other men; he even seems to resent it when the foreplay is over, like with his erstwhile and manic lover, Richard/"Dick" (Russell Sams). For Paul to be fulfilled, he needs to convince someone else that they are like him or to transform them into himself--a sign of his vanity that comes from a place of overwhelming loneliness. Paul comes across as a sensitive intellectual--even his narration has much richer diction than Sean's vacuous and meandering thoughts.
Sean is introduced into The Rules of Attraction ripping up a handful of anonymous love letters left for him by an unknown admirer--later revealed to the audience as an unnamed "Food Service Girl" (Theresa Wayman), lurking in the background of the assorted parties he crashes. He tells himself with venom in his voice that he's done with the "past", and is only looking forward to the "future". He resents being punished for opening up his heart and making himself vulnerable for the briefest of moments, even if it is through his idiotic interpretation of vulnerability. Sean is beaten after a falling out with a violent drug supplier named Rupert (Clifton Collins, Jr.), and comes to the ominously-named "End of the World Party" seeking someone he can use to make himself feel powerful, eventually locking eyes with a drunk blonde named Kelly (Kate Bosworth). Sean is hardly someone possessed of deep emotion at the chronological start of The Rules of Attraction; but the love letters he receives touches something deep inside that he thought was long since destroyed by his ubiquitous bottle of whiskey or other mind-altering stimuli. The single, innocent highlight of his days at Camden comes when he checks his mailbox, eagerly looking forward to the glitter-filled envelopes left for him. But Sean is not very bright, and makes the precipitous conclusion after bumping into Lauren that she must have been the one leaving him the letters, believing that she must be as in love with him as he is with the idea of her. Sean is a sleaze who endangers others for the thrill of it--like Victor's sniveling cohort, Mitchell (Thomas Ian Nicholas)--and lies with ease to Rupert about a sum of money he owes him from dealing on his behalf. In the shared universe of Bret Easton Ellis, Sean is the brother of Patrick Bateman, the infamous Wall Street serial killer of American Psycho. As messed up as that is, this means that Sean is arguably the "good son" of the Bateman household, even if he is less "successful". Sean is cut from the same cloth of other narcissistic womanizers and sociopaths like Tucker Max, author "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell". He exhibits excessive arrogance and unscrupulousness, using his guitar merely for foreplay with girls like Kelly, and eventually sleeping with Lara simply because Lauren--whom he claims he loves--wasn't around at the moment. But Sean becomes convinced that his way out of this lifestyle--this persona worn like armor against the world--is through embracing something "pure". He puts Lauren up on a pedestal, and believes that she and her pixie cut and skateboard can "save" him. Sean is the clown of The Rules of Attraction; even when the film slides into melodrama, Sean comes along to subvert it with an almost satirical bent--just consider his multitudinous failures at trying to kill himself and the absurd outcomes. Despite their differences, Sean and Paul both awaken from the spell of the repetitious parties and constant need for more drugs--the figurative Möbius strip that makes up their lives that lacks "forward momentum". Nearly all of the supporting characters in The Rules of Attraction exist as little more than background for the protagonists to interact with, and are nothing but diversions at the assorted parties that punctuate the film. When each of these three "heroes" becomes aware that they are a part of an endless cycle that they cannot escape without psychological pain, they step out from the background as real people, finding their identity--as harrowing as being born a second time.
Recommended for: Fans of a sardonic and indulgent film that toys with being a melodrama, black comedy, and satire all at once. The Rules of Attraction is filled with graphic and decadent content and depicts a madhouse version of college life at once both outrageously improbable and eerily recognizable. It also explores the kind of ennui that can overtake people when they struggle to find themselves, and the bleak prospect that escaping the trappings of a meaningless existence is futile anyway.
Paul is filled with an unquenchable cynicism for the superficial world he has to live in. His all-consuming resentment of it is evident when he is at dinner with his mother, Eve (Faye Dunaway), and the deepest thoughts she can muster are about the importance of her next car being blue. After Paul is violently tossed out of another college boy's room for making unwanted advances, he comments about time being immutable--a constant force that can not be altered, like "Manifest Destiny". He scornfully decries that there is no such thing as "luck", and that everything in time is "preordained". Paul is lying to himself to stifle his pain; when he mistakenly interprets Sean's momentary attention for flirtation, he lights up with romantic excitement and looks for excuses to get Sean alone, fantasizing about him while they smoke pot. It is implied that Paul was previously closeted about his homosexuality, dating Lauren before coming out. Paul has instead become a "closeted romantic", publicly feigning indifference about love through acerbic wit, yet beaming while he primps in front of the mirror before his "date" with Sean. Sean narrates that he is an "emotional vampire", yet it is Paul who has more in common with these Gothic, predatory creatures--aside from being pale and fashionable. Paul's true motivation is to find someone else who he can seduce into homosexuality. It isn't enough for him to be with other men; he even seems to resent it when the foreplay is over, like with his erstwhile and manic lover, Richard/"Dick" (Russell Sams). For Paul to be fulfilled, he needs to convince someone else that they are like him or to transform them into himself--a sign of his vanity that comes from a place of overwhelming loneliness. Paul comes across as a sensitive intellectual--even his narration has much richer diction than Sean's vacuous and meandering thoughts.
Sean is introduced into The Rules of Attraction ripping up a handful of anonymous love letters left for him by an unknown admirer--later revealed to the audience as an unnamed "Food Service Girl" (Theresa Wayman), lurking in the background of the assorted parties he crashes. He tells himself with venom in his voice that he's done with the "past", and is only looking forward to the "future". He resents being punished for opening up his heart and making himself vulnerable for the briefest of moments, even if it is through his idiotic interpretation of vulnerability. Sean is beaten after a falling out with a violent drug supplier named Rupert (Clifton Collins, Jr.), and comes to the ominously-named "End of the World Party" seeking someone he can use to make himself feel powerful, eventually locking eyes with a drunk blonde named Kelly (Kate Bosworth). Sean is hardly someone possessed of deep emotion at the chronological start of The Rules of Attraction; but the love letters he receives touches something deep inside that he thought was long since destroyed by his ubiquitous bottle of whiskey or other mind-altering stimuli. The single, innocent highlight of his days at Camden comes when he checks his mailbox, eagerly looking forward to the glitter-filled envelopes left for him. But Sean is not very bright, and makes the precipitous conclusion after bumping into Lauren that she must have been the one leaving him the letters, believing that she must be as in love with him as he is with the idea of her. Sean is a sleaze who endangers others for the thrill of it--like Victor's sniveling cohort, Mitchell (Thomas Ian Nicholas)--and lies with ease to Rupert about a sum of money he owes him from dealing on his behalf. In the shared universe of Bret Easton Ellis, Sean is the brother of Patrick Bateman, the infamous Wall Street serial killer of American Psycho. As messed up as that is, this means that Sean is arguably the "good son" of the Bateman household, even if he is less "successful". Sean is cut from the same cloth of other narcissistic womanizers and sociopaths like Tucker Max, author "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell". He exhibits excessive arrogance and unscrupulousness, using his guitar merely for foreplay with girls like Kelly, and eventually sleeping with Lara simply because Lauren--whom he claims he loves--wasn't around at the moment. But Sean becomes convinced that his way out of this lifestyle--this persona worn like armor against the world--is through embracing something "pure". He puts Lauren up on a pedestal, and believes that she and her pixie cut and skateboard can "save" him. Sean is the clown of The Rules of Attraction; even when the film slides into melodrama, Sean comes along to subvert it with an almost satirical bent--just consider his multitudinous failures at trying to kill himself and the absurd outcomes. Despite their differences, Sean and Paul both awaken from the spell of the repetitious parties and constant need for more drugs--the figurative Möbius strip that makes up their lives that lacks "forward momentum". Nearly all of the supporting characters in The Rules of Attraction exist as little more than background for the protagonists to interact with, and are nothing but diversions at the assorted parties that punctuate the film. When each of these three "heroes" becomes aware that they are a part of an endless cycle that they cannot escape without psychological pain, they step out from the background as real people, finding their identity--as harrowing as being born a second time.
Recommended for: Fans of a sardonic and indulgent film that toys with being a melodrama, black comedy, and satire all at once. The Rules of Attraction is filled with graphic and decadent content and depicts a madhouse version of college life at once both outrageously improbable and eerily recognizable. It also explores the kind of ennui that can overtake people when they struggle to find themselves, and the bleak prospect that escaping the trappings of a meaningless existence is futile anyway.