“Salo vs. Porky’s” Finding a Provacative Mix
 A Review/Ponderance of the film The Rules of Attraction by Mike Meyer
 
I honestly don’t know what was more entertaining about this film.  The film itself, or watching the unknowing hordes of college airheaded blondes who came to watch Dawson in what was promoted as racy as Cruel Intentions and as sexually fun as American Pie.  Though the characters in the film changed very slightly by the end, rattling around in a cage of ennui and sexual excess, the people who truly left changed were these girls in the theater.  They filed out almost single file with a look akin to those little gnome people in The Dark Crystal after the Skeksies stole their essence.  Their idle blabber from before the movie dried up into complete uncomfortable silence.  For them, the term cinematic rape had never been more appropriate.  But this guy sure had fun!  Watch out!  My excitement may drive me to spoilers!
 
Though I don’t normally go into detail describing a film, I’ll indulge the people who find it necessary.  Here goes….Paul wants Sean.  Sean wants Lauren.  Lauren wants Victor.  Victor wants to do coke off the backs of Danish models while he rides to glory.  All of them are oversexed, disgustingly wealthy, and completely nihilistic save their primal instant urges.   Okay, that’s mostly just Sean (yes, Sean Bateman, brother of Patrick Bateman of American Psycho).  But the other two are just as lost, trying to find what in the end is love, but are so blasé and stylish that they don’t dare acknowledge it or if they do, attempt to cherish it beyond their reptilian instinct to fuck.  It’s a drug-laced ballet of sorts that’s as sad and hilarious as a movie can possibly get without actual empathy and with very little sympathy for any of its characters.  It’s the telling of the story that makes this tale of despicable rich kids coming to terms with their humanity (or not) so intriguing.  And it’s no surprise with the people involved.
 
First off, Brett Easton Ellis.  The king of the shaggy dog, lost youth, handicaps of wealth novel.  Myself, I tried to get through American Psycho, but I had to stop halfway.  Sure the violence was staggering, but moreso was the way he told the story.  It hypnotizes you as he retells the same stories of meeting people in restaurants over and over again that, though it puts your brain to sleep, it enforces the nothingness of Patrick’s joyless life of excess and how his mind fights back by forcing him to kill people.  And to preach of the books effectiveness, I’ve told everyone who asks me, “The novel American Psycho will make the reader want to kill.”  And that is truly a compliment.  As cool as this is, you can’t translate something like this directly to film.  Ellis’s method can be too easily construed as bad storytelling by the average joe, so it takes a real craftsman to adapt it for the screen, maintaining the character’s ennui without making the film monotonous.  And who better than Roger Avary for Rules of Attraction.  The Pulp Fiction veteran can do no harm in this movie.  The most brilliant touch that this writer/director added to the book to make it a great film was a poignant satirism of teenage sex comedies.  He played by the rules of an American Pie (notable stars, college campus, a lot of over-the-top fringe characters, and complete sexual excess and immaturity) only long enough to totally destroy the base of the sex comedy genre.  I don’t know if this was intentional, but it happened.  And its effect?  Go talk to Abbey or Amber or Lexy who saw the movie for Dawson and then got their worlds destroyed with grotesque imagery spanning from vomit to intense male-on-male action to probably the most soul-shatteringly brutal suicide I’ve seen since Nick in The Deer Hunter. 
 
Some may say that Avary gets a little too hog wild with gimmicks like playing a scene backwards or too much split screen, everything he did had a definite purpose or effect and only enhanced the story.  The only thing unnecessary in this film that stuck out was a small 10 minute sidetrack involving Paul going out to dinner with his mother, her friend, and that friend’s son – a free-wheeling James Dean on amphetamines named Dick, who Paul had relations with in the past.  Though the scene is ultimately unnecessary and really doesn’t do much except try to establish that Paul is rejecting someone too, Russel Sams’ performance was so damn hilarious, you really don’t care.  Sean has a subplot as well involving a secret admirer that he thinks is Lauren.  This subplot, specifically the scenes involving Sean trying to kill himself with phone cord and NyQuil after Lauren rejects him which coincidentally happens right after Sean’s REAL admirer commits suicide (yep, the brutal one I was talking about before) says volumes about lust posing as love trying to co-opt real love.
 
In all, Rules of Attraction is a fantastic film that I suggest for anyone looking for someone with the bleak hopelessness of Requiem for a Dream fueled by the visceral energy of Fight Club under the guise of Animal House.  Just remember to go in prepared.  You’ll go home affected for sure, but if you’re not prepared, it just may taint you forever.

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