| . |
The Rules of Attraction
(Reviewed October 5, 2002)
-
By no means a good movie, and in fact a pretty bad one, but "The Rules of Attraction" is not as irredeemably awful as some critics would have you believe. (Heck, it didn't even make my "Bottom Ten of 2002" list.) Plus it includes one scene that is just plain terrific, which automatically lifts it out of "F" territory.
Director/writer Roger Avary (adapting Brett Easton Ellis' novel) is hampered right from the git-go by the fact that he had to excise the racier parts of the movie in order to get an "R" rating here in the neo-Puritan USA. (In one surviving scene, the back cover of a porn publication is smeared-and-blurred so as not to offend Americans' delicate sensibilities--which is either funny or damned sad, depending on your point of view and your opinion of the 1st Amendment.) Also, some of Avary's stylistic tricks--such as briefly running scenes in reverse as a transitional device, or split-screening two characters who are having a face-to-face conversation--are a little "film-schoolish."
Other problems: Lead actor James Van Der Beek (or "cereal-box head," as some wag once dubbed him) doesn't have much credibility as a drug-running college badass. The debauched sex-and-drugs-and-more-sex-and-drugs collegiate lifestyle is ramped up to the point of silliness. And I just plain don't dig lead actress Shannyn Sossamon at all. (Ms. S. starred in two of the worst movies of the past two years, "A Knight's Tale" and "Forty Days and Forty Nights.")
Still, this great big sloppy mess of a movie kind of sucks you in against your better judgment after awhile, like a smuttier, dopier version of "Beverly Hills 90210." And that great scene I mentioned--Victor's motormouth Europe-in-two-minutes montage near the end--is so weird and funny it makes up for seeing Fred Savage shoot himself up between his toes.
Oh, and by the way: Leonard Maltin, in his November 2002 "Film" column in Playboy, is totally wrong when he says, "in one of its first scenes...a young man is anally raping a semiconscious coed (and) throws up on her." Actually, that semiconscious coed says in voiceover that she is losing her virginity in that scene--and she doesn't mean the "backdoor" kind. Maybe Leonard never has heard of the doggie-style position...which must make him sort of unusual among Playboy staffers...
Back Row Grade: D
(Return to index by closing this window)
|
. |