It's fashionable in literary circles to hate Bret Ellis novels and yet Lion's Gate films can't stop making movies of them.  The Rules of Attraction is the second Ellis' adaptation since their 2000 production of American Psycho, which spiked more than it's share of controversy at the MPAA: not due to its graphic depiction of murder and torture, of which there is plenty, but due to an emotionless orgy scene where actor Bale admires himself in the mirror while servicing two hired ladies.  This misplaced objection is typical of the reaction Ellis' work inspires.

Rules is a disturbing look at an alienated world as it unfolds on a small New England college campus during the 1980s.  Drugs, booze, indiscriminate sex, all are staples for the students there, who spend their time waiting for the next orgy/party and dropping classes which interfere.  Teachers are sexual predators and hypocrites, using students for sex while maintaining their positions of authority.  Life, ultimately, is full of action -- fast, furious, drug-addled interactions with strangers -- but sans any meaning or message.

Like American Psycho, Rules is as much social commentary as story, with credible, solid performances by Shannyn Sossamon (40 Days and 40 Nights and no, she's not Angelina Jolie), James Van Der Beek (Dawson's Creek), and Ian Somerhalder (Changing Hearts) as the bisexual Paul Denton looking for love in all the wrong places. 

Unlike Psycho, Rules somewhat falls short of delivering its message.  In Psycho, the utterly chilling final scene makes it clear that redemption is not guaranteed, nobody will necessarily stop you from doing horrible things and that justice doesn't always prevail.  You are faced, ultimately with only a cold nothingness -- in Bateman's (Bale) steely gaze -- to reflect upon in the face of your actions.   Here, Rules opts for Van Der Beek (Sean Bateman, Psycho Patrick's younger brother) simply taking off into the night on his motorcycle, leaving an ambivalent Sossamon to coolly ponder his abscence.  In film, indifference is possibly the one theme that is rarely -- if ever -- successfully delivered and never very satisfying.  To offer no insight at all into the human condition doesn't usually indicate you're trying very hard as a writer or filmmaker.

This aside, what Rules may lack in realizing a strong message it makes up for with plot development and character insight.  Arguably, none of the characters in Rules are "developed," but we are given insight into each one's estranged life, such as it is, which not only moves the plot but supports the film's theme -- articulated by Sossamon's character Lauren -- that "you never really know anyone else," essentially because none of the characters really knows themselves.  Ultimately, the film features solid, good performances from some unexpected places and more than a few well conceived cinematic moments (thanks to Robert Brinkmann - The Cable Guy, Truth about Cats & Dogs, Encino Man) which make it worth the while. Van Der Beek sheds his bubblegum TV Dawson's Creek image and proves he can be an indie film actor.  This bodes well.

I would be remiss not to mention that the screenplay's author (and the film's director) was Canadian born Roger Avary, Quentin Tarantino's sometime collaborator and contributor to such films as Pulp Fiction (1994), Killing Zoe (1994), True Romance (1993), and Reservoir Dogs (1992).  Some fans of those films have noted similarities between scenes from those films and scenes in Rules, intentional or not.  For myself, such similarities if any are too superficial to be meaningful and ultimately add or detract nothing from the film itself.  The one element of Rules that intentionally recalls another film -- Sean being Patrick Bateman's younger brother -- is never developed at all which I did find disappointing, despite Van Der Beek's cool performance clearly inspired by Christian Bale's psychopathic Patrick.