In 1994, Roger Avary and Quentin Tarantino got an Oscar for best original script for Pulp Fiction. The two later fell out, and there was much argument about who was responsible for what in that movie. On the evidence of The Rules of Attraction, which he wrote and directed, Avary’s scriptwriting is not that fantastic. This is his adaptation of the second novel by Brett Easton Ellis (of American Psycho fame). Set in the 1980s at an American liberal arts college, though Avary fudges the period, it focuses chiefly on three students: Sean (James van den Beek), a druggy womaniser who suddenly finds himself in love with Lauren (Shannyn Sossamon), who’s just lost her virginity rather nastily; and Paul (Ian Somerhalder), the token moffie, who’s in love with Sean.That’s the outline of this tale of sex, drugs and romantic confusion, though there’s not much more to say. The only lesson to be drawn from it is that summed up by Oscar Wilde: Youth is wasted on the young. Avary traces a summer of student debauchery from the three perspectives of his main characters, using a rather witty device to show the overlapping individual narratives: between storylines, the movie runs backwards briefly, taking us back to the common starting point. Unfortunately, that’s about the only really witty thing in the movie. You could say that the main problem with The Rules of Attraction is that none of the characters is particularly interesting or likeable. For instance, Doug Liman’s film Go dealt with a similar milieu, with similarly disagreeable people, but did so with style and wit. Avary’s intention, like Ellis’s, is presumably to satirise these tiresome kids and their lifestyles, but another layer of awareness is needed — an authorial perspective that provides whatever intelligence and interest the characters lack. Sean, Lauren and Paul are pathetic, and sometimes funny, but not very engaging at all. It’s like having some bar-room bore telling you, at great length, about his sexual adventures and drug-related mishaps. Unless you care in some way about the person in the first place, you’re likely to be bored. Such accounts can’t, in themselves, make you care.