Synopsis
We all run on instinct
The incredibly spoiled and overprivileged students of Camden College are a backdrop for an unusual love triangle between a drug dealer, a virgin and a bisexual classmate.
2002 Directed by Roger Avary
The incredibly spoiled and overprivileged students of Camden College are a backdrop for an unusual love triangle between a drug dealer, a virgin and a bisexual classmate.
James Van Der Beek Shannyn Sossamon Ian Somerhalder Jessica Biel Kate Bosworth Jay Baruchel Thomas Ian Nicholas Russell Sams Kip Pardue Joel Michaely Clifton Collins Jr. Clare Kramer Faye Dunaway Swoosie Kurtz Colin Bain Fred Savage Paul Williams Kavan Reece Ron Jeremy Theresa Wayman Eric Stoltz Jesse Heiman
Les lois de l'attraction, Die Regeln des Spiels – Rules of Attraction, Las reglas del juego, Regras da Atração, Die Regeln des Spiels - The Rules of Attraction
IT SUCKS COOOOOOOOOOOOOCK
This fucking film. This film is the most perfect representation of a Bret Easton Ellis book, the style is uncanny. It is disjointed, it is meandering and there are no good people, but that's fine.
This film brought Shannyn Sossamon to my attention (she's never far from it now), it had Ian Sommerholder before he was EVERYWHERE with his creepy eyes, tiny Jay Baruchel, James Van Der Beek's best acting role (it really opened my eyes and taught me to not be judgemental just because someones been in something corny).
The camerawork is excellent and experimental, the split screens the jumps in time the backwards work is all flawless and just suits the work to a tee. The dialogue is spot on, just everything man.
Plus you know, TOMANDANDY.
(p.s kip pardue)
"I only had sex with her because I'm in love with you" is the most honest thing a fictional character has ever said.
Seven salacious takeaways from rewatching The Rules of Attraction in 2021.
1. This film is still pretty damn risqué / edgy. Drugs, venereal diseases, coked-up narcotics dealers, bathtub suicides: it unflinchingly flaunts a ton of taboos. Yet, despite pushing our cultural buttons, it has aged strangely in a few scenes. Case in point: opening with a date rape that is treated with mildly ribald undertones just doesn't bode well two decades later. We can all be thankful for that.
2. Don't forget that when this was made, it starred the leads of the WB's two hottest tween hits: James Van Der Beek of Dawson's Creek and Jessica Biel of Seventh Heaven. This was definitely to be an image-defying pivot for…
A brilliantly made film.
This is probably America's Trainspotting.
Roger Avary shows some very exciting direction. The cast are all excellent and together they bring us a breathtaking story told in breathtaking style.
Back in the day, before he became obsessed with Fifty Shades of Grey and casual homophobia, Bret Easton Ellis was an interesting writer with a number of interesting things to say. The Rules of Attraction, arguably his most famous and accomplished novel outside of American Psycho, was one of my favourite books as a teenager. As a godless sodomite born into a family of amoral atheists, I needed something to act as a bible and, for a while, The Rules of Attraction filled that void. I felt like I “got” it more than anything else I’d ever read and, more importantly, I felt like it “got” me too. It was the book that I always turned to when I…
In high school I read American Psycho, on the recommendation of a woman in Connecticut I met in an AOL chatroom when I was 13 and thought I was in love with. I was thrilled by the book for all the wrong reasons, knowing so little about affluence and the elements of the 1980's that it was satirizing, just enjoying the graphic descriptions of murder and the absurdity of chapters about Huey Lewis and such. I would later, after a couple viewings of Mary Harron's adaptation (which I liked but did not love), come to appreciate what Bret Easton Ellis was really doing with his book.
The Rules of Attraction came at just the right (and wrong) time for me.…
Cinematic Time Capsule
2002 Marathon - Film #141
"I always knew it was going to be like this"
Full of miserable mess-ups, all roaming around being highly miserable and majorily messed up, this is Roger Avary’s “arthouse film for teenagers.” And it’s the kinda shit that’ll make your spinal fluid run backwards.
BONUS POINTS for Victor’s field trip and one of the best soundtracks of the decade. Six Diffferent Ways, indeed!
”NOTE TO SELF: Never ’shroom’ again. It only gets you in trouble”