The Rules of Attraction (film)

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The Rules of Attraction

The Rules of Attraction film poster
Directed by Roger Avary
Produced by Greg Shapiro
Written by Novel:
Bret Easton Ellis
Screenplay:
Roger Avary
Starring James van der Beek
Shannyn Sossamon
Ian Somerhalder
Kip Pardue
Jessica Biel
Music by tomandandy
Cinematography Robert Brinkmann
Editing by Sharon Rutter
Distributed by Lions Gate Films
Release date(s) 11 October, 2002
Running time 110 mins
Country USA
Language English
Budget 4,000,000 USD
Followed by American Psycho
IMDb profile

The Rules of Attraction (2002) is a dark satirical film directed by Roger Avary, based on the novel of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis. It stars James Van Der Beek, Shannyn Sossamon, Ian Somerhalder, Jessica Biel, Kip Pardue and Clare Kramer.

Contents

[edit] Taglines

  • There Are No Rules.
  • We all run on instinct.
  • Past Perfect. Present Tense. Future Uncertain.

[edit] Plot

The film takes place at the fictional Camden College, a liberal arts school in northeastern New Hampshire (the film was actually shot at the University of Redlands in California).

The opening sequence introduces the three main characters - Lauren (Sossamon), Paul (Somerhalder), and Sean (Van Der Beek), in turn. They are three college students at an "End of the World" party, and although they don't interact at the party, they share a certain apathy about the situations they end up in. Lauren, previously a virgin, is raped while being filmed by a minor character who in a subtle way instructs the rapist to sodomize her. This ultimate humiliation culminated when the rapist vomits on her back. Paul is gay bashed by a football jock whom he had mistaken for gay (although in the scene it is hinted that he may have been deeply closeted), and Sean recalls (in the third person), "he couldn't remember the last time he had sex sober". After the introduction of each character, time moves backwards until we meet the next character. Essentially we observe the party from three different points of view.

The story then jumps back in time, and for the remainder of the film we follow the lives of the characters and learn how they came to know each other. Throughout the film, the characters (Sean in particular) exude somewhat of an indifference toward the people and events around them. For example, despite being set at a college, not one of the characters is ever shown attending a class.

[edit] Characters

  • Sean Bateman (James Van Der Beek) - A drug dealer who decides he is in love with Lauren. He eventually sleeps with her roommate, Lara, although he doesn't feel that this makes him unfaithful - "I only did it with her because I'm in love with you."
  • Lauren Hynde (Shannyn Sossamon) - A virgin who is saving herself for Victor, her ex-boyfriend, who is traveling through Europe. She develops feelings for Sean which dissipate when she discovers him in bed with her roommate.
  • Paul Denton (Ian Somerhalder) - An ex-boyfriend of Lauren's who has since recognized he's bisexual. He develops a sexual attraction to Sean, who eventually rejects him.
  • Lara Holleran (Jessica Biel) - Lauren's sexually promiscuous roommate.
  • Victor Johnson (Kip Pardue) - Lauren's promiscuous ex-boyfriend who, upon returning to school from his trip to Europe, cannot remember who she is.
  • Rupert Guest (Clifton Collins Jr.) - A high strung, hotheaded drug dealer in business with Sean, who owes the unstable Rupert (the result of much drug taking) a serious debt.
  • Mitchell Allen (Thomas Ian Nicholas) - A weaselly cohort who seems to idolize brutish Victor. He sponges off Sean for the drugs.
  • Marc (Fred Savage) - A heroin addicted student who owes Sean money for drugs.
  • Food Service Girl (Theresa Wayman) - An unnamed character who writes love notes to Sean Bateman. Bateman believes the notes come from Lauren. The actual author of the notes commits suicide after witnessing Bateman going off with Lara. Although he looks forward to her love notes Bateman never knows she existed.

[edit] Releases and versions

Multiple versions of the film exist, as cuts were made to receive less strict ratings in the U.S. and other areas.

The original rating that Lions Gate Entertainment received from the MPAA was an NC-17, but director Roger Avary made cuts to the film in order to achieve an R rating.

The Australian version of the film is uncut and retains the 22 seconds that were removed in the U.S. to receive the R rating.

The French 2-Disc Special Edition entitled 'Les Lois De L'Attraction' is the longest known version available. It contains a small number of scenes not shown in the U.K. & U.S. DVDs and also includes more footage of the suicide scene (including the girl actually cutting into her wrists, instead of just seeing her reaction) It also includes more content in commentary tracks than the other DVD's available.

The version released on video/DVD in the U.K. was heavily cut (even with an 18 cert) for the suicide sequence:

  • To obtain this category cuts of 1m 34s were required., some or all of these cuts were substitutions. The cuts were Compulsory.
  • A cut was required to a scene in which a teenage girl slits her wrists, on the grounds that the technique used is not widely known and is potentially more likely to result in death than the more common method, in line with the Video Recordings Act 1984, and BBFC Guidelines and Policy

[edit] Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • The principal photography for the End of the world party scene at the beginning and the end of the film was shot on September 11 2001.
  • Sean Bateman's brother Patrick Bateman, the main character of American Psycho, appears in the Rules of Attraction novel, but not in the film. Bret Easton Ellis, the novel's author, revealed in an interview that director Roger Avary asked Christian Bale (who portrayed Patrick in the film adaptation of American Psycho) to reprise his role as Patrick Bateman. Bale turned down the offer, and Avary asked Ellis himself to portray Bateman. Ellis refused, stating that he "thought it was such a terrible and gimmicky idea", and Avary eventually shot the scenes with Casper Van Dien as Patrick. The scenes, however, despite being Avary's favorites[citation needed], were ultimately cut from the final version of the film for reasons of length. A snippet of this scene can be seen in one of the "iTeasers" that Avary cut and released onto the Internet during the film's initial theatrical release. Patrick is still referenced, however, when Sean tells his drug dealers that "his brother" wired the money he owes them into his account. When Paul Denton calls Sean on the phone, Sean asks if the caller is Patrick. When Paul asks who Patrick is, Sean says it's none of his business.
  • The film was one of the first studio motion pictures to be edited using Final Cut Pro. Using a beta version of FCP 3, it proved to the film industry[citation needed] that successful 3:2 pulldown matchback to 24fps could be achieved with a consumer off-the-shelf product. Roger Avary, the film's director became the spokesperson for FCP, appearing in print ads worldwide. His advocacy of the product gave confidence[citation needed] to mainstream editors like Walter Murch that the product was ready for "prime time."
  • Eric Stoltz's character, Lance Lawson, is named for the former owner of Video Archives, the Manhattan Beach video rental store where director Roger Avary and Quentin Tarantino both worked during the 1980s. This marked the second time that Stoltz had played a character named for Lawson, following his turn as the drug dealer "Lance" in Pulp Fiction. Tarantino also worked Lawson's name into the script for True Romance, as the name of Clarence's boss at the comic book store who paid Patricia Arquette's prostitute character Alabama to sleep with Clarence (played by Christian Slater) as a birthday gift. Also, Stoltz character wears the same outfit that his character Zed did in the movie Killing Zoe.
  • Jessica Biel's line "Rusty Pipes" while snorting cocaine is identical to the one another girl speaks in the exact same situation in another adaptation of Ellis's novels (Less Than Zero).
  • The film contains a number of palindromes encoded into it, from the palindromic music compositions of tomandandy, to the year of the films release, 2002, to its very structure; with reference[citation needed] to the method in which the film begins and ends.
  • Prop comic Carrot Top recorded a commentary track for the DVD of the film. He had no involvement with the making of the film and states during the commentary that the reason he did it was because "they couldn't find anyone else to do it". The commentary gives the impression that Carrot Top had not seen the film prior to recording it. He often comments on the hotness of each actress, begs Eric Stoltz for work everytime he's on screen, and even occasionally sings along with the songs in the film, all the while making a number of self-depricating jokes.
  • A poster for the Pass Out Of Existence album by Cleveland, OH Heavy Metal band Chimaira appears in the scene where Mark lays on his bed and shoots heroin. The song "Bloodlust" from Chimaira's self-titled album is based on American Psycho.
  • The shots of Sean punching Lara (with Sean punching towards the camera, and Lara falling back from a closeup) in the hallway after Sean tries to talk to Lauren is exactly the same angles use when Eric punches Zoe in the final act of Killing Zoe.
  • The film's opening and closing dialogues are cut off, just like in the novel.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Films of Roger Avary
Directed
Killing Zoe  • The Rules of Attraction  • Glitterati
Written