Of all the movies I’ve seen today, I most highly recommend The Rules of Attraction. It’s based on a novel by the author of American Psycho, but I definitely liked this movie a lot more overall than American Psycho. And as some of you may know, I identify with the main character of American Psycho on a deep, personal level. (Though I wish I had more in common, like wealth and the ability to so easily get away with mass murder.)
The Rules of Attraction doesn’t have nearly as much death in it as American Psycho, but it definitely has at least as much weird, and quite a bit of well-written, introspective voice-over narrating characters’ inner-most thoughts. It’s basically about the relationships between people who want someone who wants someone else, though there’s plenty of sex and drugs and just-plain-craziness to distract from this complex examination of mis-placed emotional attachment.
I recommend that you watch both trailers for it. Trailer 1 really gives you a good idea of what the movie is about. I don’t want to give too much away, because there is just so much great stuff, innovative story-telling, interesting combinations of characters and situations and temporal dynamics that sometimes even conflict with themselves that this movie is almost worth watching again. (Except that I still don’t have a job, so spending so much on movies isn’t really the best idea right now.) There are things that will make so much more sense after seeing it all the way through. I saw things I missed just re-watching Trailer 2 for this review.
Great performances by Van Der Beek and Sossaman and Somerhalder, and a surprize appearance by … wait, that would ruin the surprize. Fun camera work, and you may be interested to know that just like Trailer 1 says, one of the features of this movie is “backwards”. Not in a Memento way. More … interesting and fun. You’ll like it. Go See It.
