The Rules of Attraction

Rating:
Summary: Rules of the Disillusioned
Review: Athough the book by Bret Easton Ellis ranks far superior to the movie adaptation, Roger Avary's little cinematic work is a fine and intriguing look at the lives of upper-middle class college students at a small liberal arts institution. It also one of the more disturbing and darker comedy-dramas in recent years.
The movie centers around the hazy, empty lives of its three main characters: Sean (James Van Der Beek), the drug-dealing hopeless romantic who wants nothing more out of life than to get high and get laid; Paul (Ian Somerhalder), the delusional pessimistic bisexual who pines for Sean, and Lauren (Shannon Sossamon), the virgin with a heart of ice. The plot focuses on the bizarre and ultimately anti-climactic love triangle between the three. All around them are drugs, booze, sex, and just about every form of debauchery able to be conjured up on a college campus. Sean, played by the always impressive James Van Der Beek, believes Lauren is the one leaving love notes in his mail box and convinces himself she is the one for him. Paul is unsuccessful in his attempts to connect with, well, anyone. He searches for love and companionship in all the wrong places and in all the wrong people (including the very hetero Sean). Lauren desires to save herself for Victor (Kip Pardue), her alleged boyfriend who has forgotten about her (or was she ever with him to begin with?). Lauren may be a virgin but she is far from being innocent or pure.
There are plenty of cinematic tricks delivered by Avary and his work with Tarantino on Pulp Fiction can be seen in some of the films more impressive and innovative scenes (for example the split frontal view in the only intimate scene between Van Der Beek and Sossamon). The film's style of course is significant in that it supports the idea that for the college students at the fictional Camden life is tedious, repetitive, and ultimately inconclusive. Life is also for Van Der Beek and company without a glimmer of compassion and hope and this is perhaps where the film tends to falter at times leaving the viewer(s) feeling almost as miserable as the characters. Still, it's an overall insightful portrayal of the disillusionment and moral vacancy of today's youth. The strong supporting cast includes Kip Pardue, Jessica Biel, Kate Bosworth, Fred Savage, Eric Stoltz, Russell Sams (as an obnoxious ex-lover of Paul's),Thomas Ian Nicholas, Faye Dunaway, and a list of hit 80's pop tunes.
Warning: This is NOT a teen flick. Such mature and sensitive themes featured in the film are casual sex, drug use (or abuse in this case), suicide, and rape. This is a film about the darker side of college life and thus should be viewed by only those of the appropriate age and maturity level. In other words, the film earns its R rating.

Rating:
Summary: hilarious?
Review: I think the best thing about this movie is that it is often very funny. James Van Der Beek 's performance as an amoral but goofy drug dealer and sex addict is extremely comical. His performance was excellent in getting Sean's personality down pat. The end of the movie gets very weird with a succession of rejections including Sean's rejection of a gay guy who seems to prefer straight guys, as well as Sean's rejection by Lauren whose ex has forgotten her. I think that this is what is strongest about the movie:it is very funny at times, has great acting by almost everyone, is a movie that you can not easily forget. In some ways the movie is original although previous movies have mixed fantasy with reality in a manner in which it is unclear what is fantasy and what is reality(such as Rosemary's Baby and Mullholland Drive). What is probably most original about this movie is the backward movement of the timeline. Another interesting aspect is you never know when people are telling the truth or lying including on the voice overs. Any way I would recommend the movie for anyone interested in an offbeat dark comedy and not offended by sexual content.

Rating:
Summary: An attempted satire without grounding or believability.
Review: "The Rules of Attraction" attempts to satirize college as a realm of debauchery that goes beyond a true overdoze of cynicism and for all its flash leaves little if any room for the viewer to care about any of the characters or the movie itself. It's hard to believe that a movie with so many visual tricks up it's sleeve leaves such a marginal effect.

Roger Avary, the movie's director and screen writer (who adapted it from Bret Easton Ellis' novel) is obviously a talented and imaginative director who has a strong eye for detail. There are many Tarantinoesque touches that impress, especially a sequence involving a trip to Europe that should be released as a short film, as it fails to impress as much as it would have had the director paced his earlier scenes in contrast to this amazing montage. That montage gains magnitude considering it's multilocational settings and that, if seen as a stand alone piece, is the only scene that manages to reach true satire.

There is also a great scene in which two characters are shown kind of getting ready to go somewhere, dancing to the beat of George Michael's "Faith" that shows a hint of humanity that is lacking in this movie. This scene could very well top Tom Cruise's dance in "Risky Business" as the most amusing underwear dance in recent cinema. Unfortunately, the director follows what in my mind is the best scene in the movie with one showing a cheap and unearned charicature of the parents of these messes, as hidiously played by the great Swoozie Kurtz and Faye Dunaway. What were these women thinking when they signed on to this mess?

Throughout the movie I kept thinking of a movie that tredded similar waters, but did so brilliantly: Doug Linman's "Go" which also uses flash to tell a tale of reckless twentysomethings, but succeeds because it used the flash for a purpose and has several characters that allow you to step into the movie. All the actors in "Rules of Attraction" look like models from "The Gap", "Abercrombie & Fitch" with a little "Betsy Ross" thrown in for good measure and left me feeling like the models on the catalogues of the aforementioned stores would have more on an impact that the collective bad acting exhibited by several actors from the WB's collection of teen shows. In all fairness, not even Meryl Streep could make the bad dialogue work.

The whole movie seems to want to say that priviledged young adults are clueless and that they will turn into medicated versions of their clueless selves as they age. What came first the chicken or the egg? That point could work as satire as was done brilliantly in "Six Degrees Of Separation", but here there really is no satire, intelligence, nor observation. I like flash as much as anyone and think that the movie's director has an arsenal of scenes that can be enjoyed from a visual perspective, but the story and the movie are not recommendable.

Rating:
Summary: did i seriously watch this whole thing?
Review: just got finished watching this movie on HBO and am still not sure what i just witnessed. this is quite possibly the worst movie i have ever seen. the way the movie jumped around was if the director was trying to re-invent the pulp fiction plot twist, but only ends up confusing viewers. 1hour & 50minutes wasted, better spent on something else. anything but this horrible movie.

Rating:
Summary: Quite Possibly the Dumbest Movie I've Ever Seen
Review: Words cannot adequately describe what a pile of fertilizer this "movie" is. The dopey plot is pointless, the bland actors are forgettable, the idiotic characters are reprehensible--oh, why waste the space. Avoid this junk! Pray that Hollywood stops squandering precious celluloid on Brett Easton Ellis' pretentious typewriting banging!!

Rating:
Summary: A trailer for a movie that never shows up...
Review: There are two types of bad movies. The first is movies that were doomed from Day One. (Battlefield Earth, Glitter, Swept Away fall into this category) The second type is much more aggrevating. This is movies that COULD'VE have been great, but something went horribly wrong. Sadly, "The Rules Of Attraction" falls into this category.

Director Roger Avary tries several filming techniques that would have been good in moderation, but unfortunately he drags them out to the point of boredom. A perfect example occurs at the very beginning. The first scene takes place at a party and shows events through the eyes of the three main characters, sociopathic Sean Bateman (James Van Der Beek), repressed Lauren (Shannyn Sossamon), and frustrated bisexual Paul (Ian Somerhalder). After Sean's events and before Lauren's events, the film then "rewinds", as everything we just saw is reversed. This would have been cool for about 30 seconds, but instead the film continues to rewind for a few more minutes, to the point where you want to scream "WE GET IT!" at the screen.

Another classic example is when a character who has been out of the country for most of the movie returns, and his adventures are displayed in fast-motion while he quickly narrates without taking a breath. Again, this would've have been interesting for about 90 seconds, but the scene continues to drag on for over 5 minutes.

The movie also suffers under the misconception that being "outrageous" will automatically make it interesting. Watching the characters do drugs non-stop and talk about sex isn't enough to carry a movie. And if you're going to have a character commit suicide in a graphic manner, it may be more effective if you actually give her at least one line of dialogue during the movie. It's hard to feel too much sympathy for a character we don't even know.

There are only two reasons to watch this movie. The first is for the scene in which Paul and his former male lover dine out with their mothers. This scene is so hysterically funny it almost makes the movie worth watching. The second reason is for Jame Van Der Beek, who breaks his usual typecasting and gives an incredibly effective and chilling performance as Sean Bateman. (American Psycho fans, don't get too excited, the only mention of Sean's serial killer brother is when Sean is informed that "Patrick" left a message for him). Other than these two pluses, watching "Rules of Attraction" simply makes us wonder how good this movie could have been had it been put together better. It almost feels like you've just watched a two-hour movie trailer...

Rating:
Summary: A Genuine Achievement
Review: I don't usually review movies on Amazon but felt I had to take a moment to praise Rules of Attraction for really capturing the lives of children of privilege. Somehow, utilizing mostly satire, this film captures the pain and longing beneath the trappings of wealth. A straightforward, empathetic approach wouldn't have worked -- these aren't the most charming people. By distancing us from their pain, Avary actually allows us to see it more clearly.

The film collapses under its own weight at the end. Anyway it's less a real narrative than a freeform look at sexual confusion and mores at the end of a wretched century. Beautiful and brave performances from start to finish, especially Ian Somerholder's as a pampered, narcissistic gay student with a very wrong crush.

Rating:
Summary: A Genuine Achievement
Review: I don't usually review movies (...) but felt I had to take a moment to praise Rules of Attraction for really capturing the lives of children of privilege. Somehow, utilizing mostly satire, this film captures the pain and longing beneath the trappings of wealth. A straightforward, empathetic approach wouldn't have worked -- these aren't the most charming people. By distancing us from their pain, Avary actually allows us to see it more clearly.

The film collapses under its own weight at the end. Anyway it's less a real narrative than a freeform look at sexual confusion and mores at the end of a wretched century. Beautiful and brave performances from start to finish, especially Ian Somerholder's as a pampered, narcissistic gay student with a very wrong crush.

Rating:
Summary: Just read the book trust me.
Review: The movie just tries way to hard to impress. I'm not saying it's complete crap, I mean if you compare it to most of the redone old movie classics . But on the other hand this movie was inspired by the book and yet it left out alot of key elements that makes the book so great. First of Lauren is not a virgin as they make her out to be in the movie. 2nd in the book not that much emphases is put into the character Lara and yet in the movie she is an important player since she's Jessica Biel.(no pun intended I mean she is a fox). And the main thing that bugs me is the fact that Sean and Lauren were never a couple in the movie. And yet they are a couple in the book for at least a quarter of it. So all i'm saying is if your going to do a movie based on a book dont' half ass it and add key elements from the book or rather just brush up on them at least. All and all the movie wasn't half bad, but it would be much better just to simply to read the book.

Rating:
Summary: Rock and Roll! Dawson gives a noteworthy performance!
Review: In one word, WOW! this film will be remembered much in the way FIGHT CLUB is rmembered now. Here it goes...Sean Bateman (James Van Der Beek, good old Dawson), brother to AMERICAN PSYCHO's Patrick Bateman, goes to New England's Camden College. Lauren Hynde (Shannyn Sossamon, Angelina Jolie's twin from A KNIGHT'S TALE and FORTY DAYS AND FORTY NIGHTS) and Paul Denton (Ian Somerhalder) also go to Camden and happen to be at the same party Sean is at. They are all at the End of the World party (the Camden Christmas bash) and they all are celebrating different things, which we find out through a flashback to the start of the semester.

Sean has been getting love letters from a mysterious girl and he is slowly falling in love, while dealing cocaine and screwing anyone he can on the side, even though he doesn't seem satisified with his decisions. He assumes that Lauren has been slipping him the letters, but she has her eyes set on Victor (Kip Pardue of REMEMBER THE TITANS and um, DRIVEN), who happens to be in Europe screwing every foreigner in sight and taking every drug known to man.Paul is in love with Sean, but Sean doesn't seem to notice. Sean's more interested in getting more pot and geting laid.

James Van Der Beek couldn't have picked a better role to make people forget about Dawson's Creek. This role is about as un-Dawson Leery as he can get and he fits like a glove. He really embodied the character. He is great in this film and deserves an Oscar nom but the fact is that no one will even think to give it to him just because he is a Creeker.

The movie is extremely fun to watch! Director Roger Avary has made an amazingly DARK, comedy. this ian't no ROAD TRIP or AMERICAN PIE that's for sure. Even if this film doesn't become a success atthe theatres it WILL (definately) on video and deservingly so. Oh yeah, teh soundtrack is awesome and Fred Savage is brillant in his cameo as the guy with no money (you'll see). You know what I think....Rock and roll!

B+