A snarling portrait of a group of desperate college kids, Roger Avary’s The Rules of Attraction was branded by many critics a callow exercise: as cruel as its bricked-up, empathy-starved protagonist, Sean (James Van Der Beek).
In the 2002 film, overprivileged teenagers numb themselves with weed and breakfast cigarettes, roll their eyes at the news of a classmate’s overdose and quickly forget the faces behind their merciless sexual escapades. Somewhere between a black romantic comedy and a psychosexual horror show, it’s a film so delightfully bratty that it could be easy to miss what lies beneath.
