The Rules of Attraction (2002)
The Cast
James Van Der Beek .... Sean Bateman
Shannyn Sossamon .... Lauren Hynde
Kip Pardue .... Victor Johnson
Jessica Biel .... Lara Holleran
Ian Somerhalder .... Paul Denton
Clifton Collins Jr. .... Rupert Guest
Thomas Ian Nicholas .... Mitchell Allen
Kate Bosworth .... Kelly
Jay Baruchel .... Harry
Clare Kramer .... Candice
Swoosie Kurtz .... Mrs. Mimi Jared
Faye Dunaway .... Mrs. Eve Denton
Fred Savage .... A Junkie Named Marc
Eric Stoltz .... Mr. Lance Lawson
Based on the Bret Easton Ellis novel. Directed and adapted for the screen by Roger Avary.
Sat down last night and watched The Rules of Attraction, a movie I hadn't watched since it came out, a movie I didn't completely "get" when it came out but still felt a strong connection to. Perhaps the strong connection was the lack of one, that very distinct disconnection to everyone and everything and every event that occurs around me. I didn't go to college, university, no post-secondary schooling at all, since it seemed like they really didn't want me. Ever since then I've applied that peculiar alienation I felt to every minor disaster in my life, simply put because it's easier to blame it all on someone else, someone intangible, someone I'll never have to face down. What I'm trying to say is that I identified with much of the movie, despite it being a life that I've never lived. Though I don't think that's really important when identifying with a character in a movie, since I can find a way to identify with Dorothy Gale, but I'm never going to be off to see The Wizard, skipping down the Yellow Brick Road.
This movie's all about a life that's passed me by, a life I'll never have a chance to live, characters I'll never meet, situations that will never occur, all of that. Even though most of the movie is shot from one of the three leads' cynical, twisted point of view, there's still an aura of romanticism surrounding much of the movie. They're hopeless characters that still have hope, and if anything's an apt description of me, that's it right there. It's a dark life that these characters live, each with their own bleak cross to bear, their individual self-destructions.
Sean Bateman (Van Der Beek) is the younger brother of an American Psycho (though that's never mentioned in the film), he takes drugs, fucks all sorts of women, pisses off drug dealers like Rupert (Collins Jr.), all because he can't find that connection with anyone, all because he still has that hope of connecting with someone. When Sean starts receiving letters from a secret admirer, he immediately believes them to be coming from Lauren (Sossamon), because he believes her to be sweet, innocent, incapable of ever hurting him.
Lauren is a virgin, a girl who flips through a book containing pictures of veneral diseases before going to parties so she won't go to a party, get drunk and hop into the sack with some random guy on a whim like her roommate Lara (Biel) does all the time. Lauren feels that she has a connection with Victor (Pardue), but he's off in Europe experiencing life and when he comes back, well he feels "like the ghost of a total stranger" and seemingly doesn't even remember her (a plot device that also occurred in Ellis' American Psycho movie) and so starts her self-destructive spiral.
Paul is gay and has a huge man crush on Sean. I didn't identify with him at all.
Director Roger Avary captures the despair of these characters so well, that even though you know some of the actors took the part because it's such a radical departure from the TV characters they've been typecast as (Van Der Beek, Biel), it doesn't come across as sensationalistic shock film. The acting is pretty good throughout, with my particular MVPs being The Dawson and Dream Girl Jessica Biel, though there are also some intriguing appearances by screen vets Swoosie Kurtz and Faye Dunaway, as well as glorified cameos by Fred Savage and Eric Stoltz to keep everyone watching. It's a gorgeously shot movie applying a Tarantino-esque non-linear storytelling spin on it, with a score that sometimes borders on cacophonistic noise. It's not a movie that will not make you bored, and it won't make you feel necessarily clean in the end either. And if you've lived a life blissfully free of people that aren't anything like the characters in this movie, you might not identify with it at all. Or maybe you're like me, and that disconnect is exactly what connects you to them.
4 / 5