| Brogan Earney |
The Rules of Attraction plays at the Trylon Cinema from Friday, November 29th, through Sunday, December 1st. Visit trylon.org for tickets and more information. Happy Holidays!
By the early 2000s, the teen comedy genre was at the height of its powers. Movies like She’s All That, 10 Things I Hate About You, Clueless and many more, were pumped out monthly and guaranteed to bring box office success. Eventually, they became tropey and predictable, usually following the same formula and attempting to hit the same beats that are so recognizable for the genre. The tropes became a joke upon themselves and led to a new genre of “spoof” movies like Not Another Teen Movie or Scary Movie. These spoofs diluted the genre and made the teen movie a joke and an unrealistic reflection on teen life. The final nail in that coffin was a film called The Rules of Attraction.
The Rules of Attraction was adapted from a Bret Easton Ellis novel of the same name. Its story is unconventional, stylistic, and toys with the structural tropes of the average teen comedy—similar to another adaptation of a Bret Easton Ellis novel, Less Than Zero. That film changes the conventions that are usually expected in a teen comedy and allows for a much darker representation of youth life. Less Than Zero was an answer to the John Huges era of teen comedies, and The Rules of Attraction is more or less an answer to any of the teen comedies or dramas of the 90s. Now, one could argue that this isn’t really a teen comedy because it operates around college students or young adults. But this film allows you to imagine what life is like at the next step for these young individuals. What happens when the structure of youth disappears, and they are left to their own vices in real life struggles?
Director Roger Avary meant for this film to be an “anti” teen comedy, or in his words, “the assassination of the teen comedy.” Besides the aggressive nature of the film and its style, the cast was also a major player in the reception of the film. The movie is full of actors whose previous work has painted them in a lighthearted way. James Van Der Beek was coming off of Dawson’s Creek, Kate Bosworth had Blue Crush and Young Americans, Kip Pardue and Jessica Biel had 7th Heaven, and Ian Somerhalder also had Young Americans. For the filmmakers, this cast anticipated swaths of young people racing to the theaters to see this film without any expectations for what it’s about. For the actors themselves, the film allowed them to shed their teen heartthrob alter egos and move their careers into a new direction. I would say that for both parties this strategy really worked. It helps that all of the young actors involved give some of their careers’ best performances. On the surface, this film contains just as much sex, drugs, and partying as any other teen comedy of its time. The dark and realistic performances, however, help the characters become more recognizable and even relatable. In turn, the fact that each character is able to move from one shameful event to another without realizing the weight of their actions allows us to find humor in their despair.
The film begins with a college party sequence labeled as “the end of the world party,” and finds the main characters at the end of their journeys and reaching their respective low points. These low points are tough to stomach and instantly destroy the presumed innocence of each teen. Using insightful and humorous narration from each of the main characters and a nonlinear style of filmmaking, Avary showcases the chaos and disorienting nature of the average college party experience. I would argue that the first 5-10 minutes of The Rules of Attraction could rival any of its teen comedy predecessors. The way Avary continuously rewinds us through the party makes for an electric beginning that gets you onto the same wavelength as the characters. Some might argue that it could be a case of too much style over substance, but Avary understood that with a story this heavy, it would be foolish not to try and stylize the film just as much. The rewind feature of the first party scene really works for me. So does the use of split screen at the meet cute of Sean and Lauren, and so does the aggressive montage of Victor’s trip through Europe. All of these choices add to the chaos of the film, it’s a lot. But with this type of story it just feels right.
The Rules of Attraction did decent numbers at the box office; on a budget of 4 million, it brought in around 12 worldwide. Lionsgate insisted on promoting it as a teen comedy, and even tested it to young audiences to gather their reaction. Notoriously, one of these tests was at a conservative mall in Orange County which resulted in dozens of walkouts and people shouting “fag film” at the screen as they left. Either way, Lionsgate carried on and continued the teen comedy promotion. The film was not well received by critics and didn’t really make an impact. Mostly, it was criticized for its harsh and unlikeable characters, which was a big deal for a movie like this back then. But recently, it has been revitalized as a cult classic and one of the most inventive films of the early 2000s. Bret Easton Ellis has spoken positively about the film, he said in a SCAD Ivy Hall Writer Series, “My favorite movie out of the four [the four adaptations of his novels] was The Rules of Attraction. I thought it was the only one that captured the sensibility of the novel in a cinematic way. I know I’m sounding like a film critic on that, but I’m talking about that in an emotional way—as the writer of the novel. I watched the movie and thought they got it in a way that Mary Harron the Director of American Psycho didn’t and Less Than Zero didn’t.”
If this is your first time seeing The Rules of Attraction this weekend, my only advice is to have fun with it. At times it will be hard to watch, and might make you uneasy, but that’s the point. These characters make decisions that can only bring them despair, and like I said earlier, try to find the humor in the despair. And if you’re seeing American Psycho as well, remember that Patrick Bateman is technically Sean Bateman’s older brother, which makes both of these films that much more fun!
Edited by Olga Tchepikova-Treon