THE RULES OF ATTRACTION - get ready for the tangential Tony Scott reference!

Friends, the rumours are true: yes, I own DAWSON'S CREEK: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION. This may not be a shocking revelation, coming so soon after my stunning admission that I've read (and, at times, enjoyed) all the Twilight books, and own (and have not returned) a 50 Cent CD, but it can't be my fault that Kevin Williamson's seminal coming-of-age teen series is an eerie and horrible mirror to my life. It can't be. I had never seen an episode of Dawson's Creek before last year. I never chose to wear the same sweaters as Dawson. I never made my mom buy decorative banners to hang outside our house so that our house would look like Dawson's. And I didn't go to film school only to become disillusioned with filmmaking because that's what Dawson did. It just kinda happened that way. So yes, I watch Dawson's Creek. I watch it in the vague belief that James Vanderbeek is some sort of Kyle Reese-version of me, a warrior of sorts, sent back to our time from the future to warn me away from making horrible life choices.

Which is why watching RULES OF ATTRACTION post-Dawson's Creek was really, really weird for me. I've grown pretty accustomed to seeing James Vanderbeek as an avatar of myself over five seasons or so, so to see him as an "emotional vampire", as he describes himself in the film, was fairly disturbing. It's like watching Kyle Reese rip off his face to expose a glowing red eye and glinty exoskeleton underneath (Editor's Note: this review continues after a two-hour break in which Brandon wrote a totally wicked fanfic where John Connor was forced to kill a terminator with his father's face - which temporarily helped blot out the fact that The Sarah Connor Chronicles ever existed in his mind - Smitty.)

Where was I? RULES OF ATTRACTION, right. It's a dark satire of the college experience, based on a Bret Easton Ellis novel, and adapted and directed by Roger Avary, the man who gave us at least some of TRUE ROMANCE (Tony Scott-approved!), the Bruce Willis section of PULP FICTION, and the script for Zemeckis' BEOWULF (co-written with Neil Gaiman). The man is a talented writer, and what is most admirable about his scripting for this film is while it is unrepentantly bleak, there's an incredible amount of humour going on at the same time. It's wickedly funny, the kind of laughter where you're thinking to yourself, "I shouldn't be laughing at this. I mean, that's Jay Baruchel OD'ing over there - I should feel sad that the kid from PMK is dying."

But you don't. It's impressive that you never really empathize for the characters of THE RULES OF ATTRACTION, but you're still fascinated and amused by them. They're all cold, unfeeling imitations of humanity - Terminators, almost - who treat each other terribly. Essentially it's a film about how awful people can be, but it never becomes so repugnant that you want to turn it off - it's something of a miracle. Vanderbeek is a bit of a heartless bastard, Shannon Sossamon is self-absorbed and deluded, Ian Somerhalder is a pathetic obsessive, and Jessica Biel is playing a straight-up bitch - but they're all kind of funny.

If I have a complaint with THE RULES OF ATTRACTION, it would be that the film is occasionally over-stylized. I can live with the backwards footage that opens the film, and the incredibly fast-paced 'Victor' sequence, as I think they accurately depict a mood that Avary is going for, but things like the split-screen sequence or the heavy-handed scene with Swoosie Kurtz and Faye Dunaway feel like he doesn't trust his actors to convey the emotion or point of the scene (and this from the guy that liked CONVERSATION(S) WITH OTHER WOMEN!) You want the film to calm down at points and just tell a straightforward story without trying to blow your eyeballs off.

Certainly not for everyone, if THE RULES OF ATTRACTION is like Kyle Reese turning into a Terminator, then it comes with the realization that you're a Terminator, too, and now you can play awesome robot games together! Yippee! I love you robot dad!