Review of The Rules of Attraction (2002) by Johnny L — 25 May 2008

I do not understand the purpose of this movie.

The dialogue is often boiled down to contrived cliches, which I thought for awhile was the writer/director poking fun at how superficial and idiotic the characters are... but then it starts to pull in serious accounts of suicide, and then just making completely common, unspectacular events (like unrequited love and having dinner with your parents while away at school) unapologetically absurd.

So where is it going?

Are the characters/situations being mocked or defended/explained?

When all things are taken into account (the painfully banal gimmick of telling the story in reverse, the intentionally fuzzy lines drawn between dreams and reality... all the other cursory methods of adding 'depth' to the movie), I can't see how any conclusion other than "this movie just isn't very good" can be reached. It's not a case of "having to get the 'dark humor'", that's just something idiots say to defend the pseudo-intellectual dreck that populates their DVD collections.

Points in favor of this movie though:

- The sound track was pretty good. Maybe it is just my unadorned love for tape delay, but running songs and dialogue in reverse when the movie would rewind itself through events was nice on my ears.

- Although she is an awful actress, I like looking at Shannyn Sossamon.

- I waited all the way through to the credits simply because I was convinced that 'Victor" was played by Daniel Tosh... silly me.