Rules of Attraction

Now anyone who has been to my Web site knows that I ain't the best looking guy in the world. Yet I have done fairly OK on the dating scene over the years. I don't mind telling you that if I had a nickel for every time a date of mine said, "I don't know what it is, but I'm strangely attracted to you," I'd be a rich man.

OK, I'd have 20 cents. But still...

My point is that the so-called rules of attraction are just plain strange. The qualities that make one person attractive to another person can make that same person totally unattractive to others. For instance, I know some women who think that Jeff Goldblum is one of the most alluring men working in movies today. They like his height, his sense of humor, and his confidence. Then again, I know other ladies who think he is as repulsive as his Brundlefly character from 1986's The Fly. Or take Tom Cruise. Some women look at him and see his eyes, his hair, and his chiseled features. Others see a grotesque, horse-toothed smile and a weirdly, misshapen nose. The same goes for women. I'm sorry, but Pamela Anderson is just ghastly to me. But I know some men who would crawl on their bellies naked through broken glass to get to her.

This isn't just about celebrities. The same holds true in everyday life. It was the same in high school, college, and the various places I have worked in. Some of the people who were considered the most attractive, I never thought much of. They always seemed to be the LEAST interesting people to me. The least attractive.

Now we have a movie titled The Rules of Attraction, a deeply twisted college movie from longtime Quentin Tarantino collaborator Roger Avary. The film attempts to explore many of the messed up reasons why human beings are lured together in an exchange of bodily fluids and often temporary fascinations. The film is pretty raw. It doesn't pull many punches.

As proof of this, it is actually a sequel of sorts to American Psycho. Like that controversial film from a few years back, The Rules of Attraction is based on a novel by Bret Easton Ellis. This flick, though, owes more to the Paul Thomas Anderson films Boogie Nights and Magnolia in delivering a kaleidoscope of depraved, young miscreants who look to screw, get screwed, and become increasingly screwed-up. I can see how some will loathe this movie, regard as something completely evil. It features rampant drug use, lots of deviant sex, multiple suicide attempts. Plus, it had a teaser poster that was one of the best ever, featuring a menagerie of cute, stuffed animals in various sexual positions. An orgy of plush!

James Van Der Beek of Dawson's Creek fame stars as Sean Bateman, an on-campus operator who constantly looks to deal drugs, conquer women, and pile up debt on his way to Nowhereville. Sean has caught the eye of Paul Denton (Ian Somerhalder), an ultra-cynical bisexual student who drifts between humiliating others and being humiliated himself. Paul once dated Lauren (Shannyn Sossoman), a virginal undergraduate who is hot for Victor (Kip Pardue, who is at the center of a trippy montage sequence that relates his sex-and-drug misadventures in Europe). Lauren is also infatuated with the virile Sean.

Sean, Paul, and Lauren are the three main characters of The Rules of Attraction. But it is the people who come in and out of their lives that make this film worth seeing--the interesting fringe characters who add texture to this twisted tale. The cast includes a lot of young stars playing against type, which is half the fun of seeing it. In addition to Van Der Beek, Fred Savage of The Wonder Years shows up for one brilliant scene as a coked-out graduate student who owes Sean money. Eric Stoltz, the former nice kid of Mask and Some Kind of Wonderful fame, plays a sleazy professor who hangs out with his students for the drugs and loves to ask his female students to give him "hummers" as part of their curriculum. And Jessica Biel of 7th Heaven is quite alluring as Lauren's overly promiscuous roommate.

Hands down the best scene in the film, though, is a lunch between Swoosie Kurtz and Faye Dunaway. The two veteran actresses have a ball as neurotic, pill-popping socialites completely unaware that their respective sons are homosexual and have just enjoyed some afternoon delight in the hotel room upstairs. Sample dialogue:

Swoosie: "Here, take these pills."
Faye: "What are they?"
Swoosie: "Does it matter?"
Faye: "No, I guess not."

OK, I think if I try and find a higher purpose, a moral undertone, or a message in this film, my head will explode. This is just a film that says, "Hey, kids. Look. This is the work of the Devil. Become Satan's willing thrall, pay your $8 admission, and then wait patiently for the extended, unrated DVD early next year!" But, hey, if you want to find a message in all this, if you want to make The Rules of Attraction out to be some kind of modern cautionary tale, go right ahead. For me, this movie was about drinking, drugging, and shagging. It was about Avary asking, "How much can I leave in and still get the R?" I never got the sense that the writer-director was going out of his way to offend me. His touch is very similar to Anderson's in that he just throws so much at you, so fast, that you just kind of surrender yourself to the hedonism or you don't. And like Anderson, Avary can show you a hundred different ways to have fun with a movie camera, especially early in the film where he makes ample use of reverse angle replays to show how the different players fit in at a massive booze party.

Like that good-looking guy or good-looking girl in your office, your class, your church, or your building who some people think is cute and some people think is just odd looking, you can look at this movie and see it two ways. You can recognize its style, its wit, and its energy, or you can just lament its depravity, its corruption, and its lack of a moral center.

Hey, it's just the Rules of Attraction!

The Rules of Attraction is rated R for ... uh, did you read the review?