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The Rules of Attraction  BY: DAVID PERRY Bret Easton Ellis is not a writer who can easily be marginalized: his works seem to be created if only to confound. But reading his prose becomes just as entrancing as the stories themselves -- his novelty somehow adds to the stories instead of eclipsing them. His creations are never those of nobility -- his dystopia of drugs, sex, and pop-culture seems to relish in its own level of debasement. Many critics have accused him of looking voyeuristically at human nature's worst side, never even imagining a world of good. And, in many ways, its refreshing to see someone who feels like this: his cynicism comes with a knee-jerk profundity and a wicked wit. No modern author can be simultaneously disturbing and commanding. Part of the reason that Ellis' biggest titles -- American Psycho, Less than Zero, Glamorama, and The Rules of Attraction -- remain so engrossing is that they do happily wallow in the worst side of our society. On college campuses, where sociology and philosophy classes are teaching of these sordid peoples, his name is almost as recognized as J.D. Salinger. While most older cultural/literary critics rebuff his works as little more than negligent disparagement, the young intelligentsia has already embraced him as the only modern author who can intelligently speak for them. Ellis' 1987 novel The Rules of Attraction probably wouldn't have seen the light of day as a film had American Psycho not found a cult following after its cinematic debut two years ago despite the fact that director/writer Roger Avery has been attempting to get this book into production for many years. Even Avery's Academy Award for co-writing Pulp Fiction could not help get this project off the ground -- only the support of a small enclave of Patrick Bateman fans. The film begins auspiciously enough with a 15-minute montage of stories going forward and backward and constantly crossing. Three characters dominate the screen with their own stories while Avery and editor Sharon Rutter seamlessly show their corresponding follies. It's "The End of the World Party" and the film's lack of temporal coherence helps to convince the audience that this title might in fact be true. "I just get the feeling my life lacks forward momentum," says Paul Denton (Somerhalder), a gay student at the upper crust New England university of Camden. His introduction, though, is an intentional affront to those very words: initially his conversation is played backwards, part of a rewind from the story that has just finished. That story is one of Lauren Hynde (Sossamon), a smart young co-ed trying desperately to make sense of her virginal decisions. She has spent the entire Fall semester pining over the vacationing Victor (Pardue; whose European holiday is told in a tour-de-force 5-minute montage that looks like a vacation slideshow gone horribly awry) and listening to the sexual exploits of her promiscuous roommate Lara (Biel). In the opening of the film, though, she decides to finally give up her vow of chastity waiting for Victor -- a decision she soon learns to be a mistake. All along, there's the presence of Sean Bateman (Van Der Beek), brother to American Psycho's Patrick Bateman and two-bit drug dealer to Camden's partying populace. His shallowness seems to be his fondest attribute -- a fact that is established immediately as he takes a young girl on Ecstasy to his room only to find the trouble inherent in sober sex. For once in his life, though, he loves someone and has someone loving him -- too bad they are not the same person. In the past semester, he has somehow found an attraction to Lauren; meanwhile, Paul has grown an attraction to Sean under the false pretense of homosexuality. The existentialism runs wide and deep in the film as Avery attempts to represent Ellis' unbridled realities in a series of cinematic contraptions that are as festive for the eyes as they are paramount to the story. The film's backward opening is, without a doubt, the centerpiece of the entire film, but more impressively is an unexpected suicide sequence in the middle of the film. Never has a suicide seemed more realistic -- the camera remains fixed on the face of the dying and the audience begins to share the pain. We are left to cringe at the pain of watching someone die, not through gore but through expression. The most common accusation made against the film is that
none of the characters are the least bit likable. In truth, this criticism cannot be
disregarded -- for the most part, these callow, puerile, and prickly characters are doing
things that cannot be completely defended. More importantly, though, is the fact that
these superficial caricatures are thinly veiled creations of our darkest sides. It would
be easy for me to act disgusted by everything these people do, but they are exactly what I
am like at my worst times. Ellis seems to be inviting the audience to decry these people,
only to then remind us that we are scrutinizing ourselves. |
