Review of The Rules of Attraction (2002) by Claire B — 03 May 2009

We as humans like applying laws to most things, such as games, or relationships, but the processes that we struggle at, we never apply rules to. This may be, because rules were designed to control the â??funâ?? according to some. This film (from the novel of the same name) digs through how we express this attraction, at the time when most discover it, at College. Roger Avery attempts to depict this via editing tricks, such as split screens, freeze-frames, and running the film backwards. At first, this draws the attention, but its over-use begins to drag, numbing the senses, which damages the film since it throws explicit scene after explicit scene, such as a girl losing her virginity with a stranger, whilst being filmed and thrown up on. These scenes, designed to have emotional impact, feel detached from reality, because of their brutal honesty. The only scene which contains emotional context is a suicide, which stars a character we never even knew.

The characters we do know are unlikeable to a tee, each being selfish and needy. However, these terrible people actually connect slightly, because we able to associate their weaknessesâ?? to our own, but only within the film itself, because their sins are more brutal to the masses, we cannot relate. There are some sparks of brilliance, mainly coming from James Van der Beek who is brilliant as the slightly psychotic drug dealer and a hilarious dinner scene. However, other than that, the comedy is darker than oil, and the conclusion of us as humans is equally as bleak. Even if, we defined rules for that.