media monday: the rules of attraction.

On Saturday night, I decided to revisit one of my favorite movies: The Rules of Attraction. I hadn't seen this film in years, and most importantly, I hadn't seen in it since I had read the book a little over a year ago. While I should have been working hard on writing the first ten pages of my thesis, I was actually doing some proactive procrastinating, since the book is related to my thesis.

For those of you that don't know me, I'm writing my thesis on the novel Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis. I'm relating it to how consumer culture affects one's ability to navigate reality and self-discovery -- but that's more than you need to know. If you've read Ellis before, you know that he loves to reuse characters and have them cameo in his other works. Three of the main characters of Glamorama actually originated in The Rules of Attraction. Thus, I was actually working on my thesis without really doing much working (but I did randomly take some notes, the nerdiness cannot be avoided).

Okay, back to the good stuff. Rules is one of the few movies that I think works as an adaptation from the novel. While things were changed and left out, characters added and made more important, like uhhh Jessica Biel's character? Who are you and why do I care? Except that I do and I love you. I do know who she was meant to be, but it was different than the book; although if you read it, you'll understand why things had to be changed to keep the movie under a month long. ANYWAY, considering how shitty the adaptation was of Less Than Zero, I definitely didn't have high hopes for this one. But this really works and I highly recommend it. But only after you read the book, of course! Then after you watch it, read Glamorama and curse the gods that the movie was never made for this. But there's still hope… maybe.

Movie: 4/5 stars
Book: 5/5 stars