The Rules of Attraction (2002) Bret Easton Ellis and Roger Avery's Striking portrayal of 2000s hedonistic culture

 

The Rules of Attraction (2002) Bret Easton Ellis and Roger Avery's 
Striking portrayal of 2000s hedonistic culture

by Kyndra Lee Burkland

“A great numb feeling washes over me as I let go of the past and look forward to the future. Pretend to be a vampire. I don't really need to pretend, because it's who I am, an emotional vampire. I've just come to expect it. Vampires are real. That I was born this way. That I feed off of other people's real emotions. Search for this night's prey. Who will it be?”
― Bret Easton Ellis, The Rules of Attraction

“Rock 'n' roll. Deal with it.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, The Rules of Attraction

We begin the film as a conjoined group of college students huddle in their bubbles at the end of the world party, as a character named Lauren is being told she looks like Clara Bow by an abusive and pretentious film student. He immediately loses his attention toward her, yet demise still happens. She recites a borderline brainwashed monologue about this experience in her personal view. Soon, everything flows backward in time, the bubbles are popped and time is an illusion. This technique in filmmaking has always fascinated me, and it feels entirely fitting to use it in a film where everything is real yet a distorted haze. I get the sense every time I view this film that no one ever truly knows what they're doing, where they are, and why it would matter. They don't care to, privilege grants them the opportunity to gaze in whatever direction and won't affect anything. Characters are allowed to wander, drink, smoke, punch, and have sex as they please as if it's on some form of a broken loop of self grieving. 

Ellis brings style to raw and realist subject matter that I have rarely seen in writers, making something charming from the eerie. Bringing a dark humor to our outlook on the media, hedonism, and even death. Teaching us what happens behind dorm walls, never leaning one way or the other in a moral outlook other than to provide a cautionary tale that is filled with entertaining artistic value. Nothing is hidden or sugar-coated, but these characters are human. You could know them, I could have even known them. I did in college, fortunately, and unfortunately.  Instead of portraying this premise in a fly-on-the-wall documentary style, like that of Kids (1995), we are shown the unconventional plot through front-on cinematography. It's all in our faces, POV, and intimate. The Audience is invisible yet complicit in these character's lives, at each party, making everything hit us like a truck when there is drama and heartache or mistakes being made that we can't help but understand. Feelings of regret and poignant thoughts resonate. This is what separates The Rules of Attraction from other sex-driven comedies of the time, and it was marketed this way to an extent.  Playing with death and suicide in multiple scenes, no one actually dies yet there is a constant attitude towards expiry. Pushing the character's mindset to show no regret, and no shame, through drugs and death there is attention-driven interaction and affection. Death and vile aren't real, because they're young. To be playing with time constantly drawn back into the narrative. I know I had this mindset years ago before getting sober, it hit me in the heart even if I was laughing at moments. 

Yet, I can't help but sense that this would not have made much money without consumable marketing, If people knew what they signed up for, we wouldn't have a cult classic, we'd have a ghost.  As Shannon Sossamon and James Van Der Beek break their mold, their star power has relevance. Actors have consistently done this to break out of typecasted roles. We've seen it in Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers and have seen it work in some cases. I think there's something meaningful about good girl/good boy actors feeling a genuine urge to create meaningful art and actual cinematic experiences for the viewers.  They really do carry this movie and bring emotional and endearing performances, or in Van Der Beek's case a compelling sense of emotional void that we've seen in so many men before and following.

There's a great conversation starter on the subject of male anger, frustration, and vampire-like use of women and what they stand for to them. These women are sweet, but they're constantly building in an attempt to live up to standards of what an attractive human looks like which to me, says something about societal expectations of the time as well as the sexualized nature of media at the time circa: Girls Gone Wild and the allure of supermodels. Standing in a consumerist setting, consuming women was included.

In recent years there has been a decline in drinking and drug use in young adults, I wonder if this is a result of the constant surveillance and policing of bodies in the modern day. When people go to parties it's a less hedonistic atmosphere. Are attention spans evolving, have we become more hyper-aware of the consequences of our actions in a continually chronically online culture? Are we still idiotic and free, allowed to be flawed people filled to the brim with complexity? This wasn't the case in 2002 unless you were of celebrity status in some form. Now it can all be publicized, one photo of you partying could have implications of you being embarrassing in whatever way it's moved.

In conclusion, the Rules of Attraction has the potential to strike a chord with audiences in a timeless fashion. However, that is completely up to new generations. We will always be affected by the world surrounding us, how we let it mold us is a different story. I'm extremely curious to see if the nihilism rings true in years to come, or if the increasingly scrutinizing culture creates social concern not seen before in the forefront of cinema. I've seen the way people watch films changing. Personally, every story should be able to be brought to life and that should include complex unfiltered works as well as clean and polished.