The Rules of Attraction
The Rules of Attraction should by the sinister ying to
American Pie’s goofy yang when it comes to the lives of college students. In
American Pie the naïve sex obsessed teens bumble around trying to get some and still be likable and what Roger Avary’s adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ novel
Rules of Attraction attempts to do is pull down the curtain that separates
American Pie from real college life and show it off as the narcissistic, cynical, deeply childish experience it is to some people. Ellis successfully did the exact same thing in
American Psycho-though its target (1980s materialism) was a bit different-and indeed
Rules of Attraction features Sean Bateman (James Van Der Beek), the brother of Psycho’s resident nutcase Patrick Bateman.
American Psycho deadpanned its insanity and came off as a wicked satire and
Rules of Attraction’s biggest fault and strongest point exist in how realistic and sane these college students are supposed to be. Gone is the twisted subjective perspective of the self centered, pleasure obsessed man that made American Psycho’s satire work so well and in jumps three mundane teenage characters.
Sean (Van Der Beek), an attractive rich boy who can nott remember the last time he had sex sober and convinced himself he’s in love with Lauren (Shannyn Sossamon), a pixyish girl who keeps her mind off sex by looking at a textbook of venereal diseases because she has a boyfriend in Europe; the last part of the semi-related trio of confused teens is Paul (Ian Somerhalder)
, another attractive rich boy, this time gay, who continually tries to seduce Sean. They are the main focus of the movie, though no on seems more important than the other and everyone seems to drift from weekend to weekend and place to place with no particular momentum and for no particular reason. Each one is self-obsessed, sex obsessed, and drug obsessed to varying degrees, all of which is apparently suppose to come across as shocking and amusingly degenerate. It certainly is a relief for a movie to portray college life with a relative degree of accuracy, and one can amusingly imagine that if one took the characters from
American Pie, isolated them away from their friends, and put them in an environment as soul-sucking as the college life in
Rules of Attraction that they too would quickly turn to depression, suicide attempts, irrational attractions built on creaky logic, wild and numerous sexual encounters, and rampant hypocrisy (not to mention drug dealing, rape, and drug induced seduction). But Roger Avary gets it all wrong, writing the characters so thin that their “wild” and “crazy” encounters have to speak for themselves and besides for some lukewarm stylization at the beginning of the film Mr. Avary is content trotting behind these people while they contemplate sex, try to have sex, or talk about something as equivalently “shocking” as promiscuous sex.
The depravity of these white, wealthy, intelligent college students should come as no surprise to people who are used to the gross-out comedies of the 90s like
American Pie and
Road Trip which have the habit of taking such an over the top look at “college life” that watching James Van Der Beek’s Sean taking a crap or Paul sexually lure Sean back to his room under the guise of smoking weed is really no different than watching any film starring Jason Biggs. Its all been done before, albeit in a more jovial tone and less obviously narcissistic, but showcasing college students as egotistical and fairly superficial is preaching to the choir. It does not help that Avary lazily structures the film, which plays mostly like vignettes that slowly built up to sloppy gags or flat observations. Sean’s on again off again sex hunt for Lauren drives most of the story, which starts and ends at a party mysteriously titled “The End of the World (Party).” Initially small amounts of inner narration take the place of dialogue, explaining what is right in front of the camera and trying to pass off as proof that all these kids think about is sex and the minor ethical details its surrounded by (like when Paul has to decide which of two men is more homosexual so he figure out which to slip ecstasy, or when Sean contemplates which would be more fun: having sex or going out to dinner and ditching the girl with the check). In its adherence to portraying these kids just like the really are
Avary left the satire somewhere back when Patrick Bateman practically has a heart attack when he finds out his business card is not as snazzy as his co-workers in
American Psycho. Bateman is funny because he knows he is tricking himself into thinking he really knows what is important in life. The teenagers’ self-knowledge in
Rules of Attraction is remarkably minimal considering their narcissism and they lack the petty kind of pretentious self-introspection that would make them laughable. The film quickly becomes reliant on the characters as hollow traveling focal points for gags and scenes that have so little wit and bite that
Rules often comes off as
American Pie 3: This Time We’re Self Centered And Angry. Avary gets points for making a movie about what many rich college kids are probably doing in America, but it is only sometimes funny and dangerously lacks real insight into what keeps these jerks running. Props also to James Van Der Beek who has not only taken an interesting career turn but has also completely mastered the long admired
Kubrick Stare joining an exclusive club with Jack Nicholson, Malcom McDowell, and Vincent D’Onofrio.
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