Breaking the rules..

This film is a combination of young actors misguidedly trying to be pretentious and a director who is so thoroughly unfashionable in his attempt to be 'Tarantino-esque'. Didn't that go out of style a few years ago? Everything about this movie screams, 'LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!'

The Rules of Attraction is a desperate attempt to shock us and make us understand the stunning complexity and maddening depth of college druggies... and it's just laughable.

At no point will you ever be aghast at the happenings on screen. The director throws us every trick in the book and litters his film with overt melodrama. Maybe I'm wrong but, unless you are an extreme right-wing Christian-coalition conservative, I don't think the blatant drug usage and heavy dose of male homosexuality will shock anyone. I found myself saying, 'So what!'

This film is exactly what it tries so heavy-handedly to avoid... it's dull.

© Written by TC Candler

How We Rated This Film TC Candler - D+ Richard Propes - C Jacob Hall -

Richard Propes' Comment

"The Rules of Attraction" was author Bret Easton Ellis' follow-up to the controversial "American Psycho." The hilarious thing I find with Ellis is the way he intersperses characters from each book into the next book...he's sort of a psychotic Harry Potter, I suppose. This film, unfortunately, lacks the style, substance, and performances of "American Psycho," but Van Der Beek is certainly no Christian Bale. Yet, if one watches carefully, one can see the genetic link between Van Der Beek's Sean Bateman and Bale's Patrick Bateman. "The Rules of Attraction" tries too hard to be controversial instead of trusting Ellis' source material, which resulted in two other films, "Less Than Zero" and "American Psycho." Of course, this novel was also considered seriously inferior to his other works and what began as a promising career has subsided significantly.

Jacob Hall's Comment

n/a