Newsnight Review discussed The Rules of Attraction written and directed by Roger Avary and based on the book by Bret Easton Ellis.

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(Edited highlights of the panel's review)

BONNIE GREER:
I will tell you, for a guy who has won an Oscar as a screenplay writer, he starts this movie off as bad as you possibly could. The first 20 minutes are completely off-putting. You have to stay with this movie, if you want to be bothered with it, to go into the world he creates. I grew to like it because I relaxed into it. Don't look at me like that, Tom! But he messes up in the first 20 minutes. If you don't like that first 20 minutes, you have lost this thing. The other problem is I think this movie is out of its time. This movie is about slacker youth in about 1980- something or other. We are passed that now, so in a sense it's kind of old- fashioned now.

LAWSON:
Charles, Bonnie feels it's out of time?

CHARLES SAUMAREZ SMITH:
Well, it's about 1980s student life. Sex, violence, drugs, rape, the lot. I found it slightly oppressive and completely nihilistic and rather depressing, so that I can't say I enjoyed it. I didn't.

LAWSON:
As Bonnie says, it's very much about the 1980s. When the book came out, it was seen as being about Reaganism and about certain kind of consumption, women, drugs, everything else. They have tried to update it. There is a reference to broadband and digital cameras. But it doesn't work?

SAUMAREZ SMITH:
It's rich Reaganism. There's something so repellent about it, I couldn't bear it. Although the acting was very good. The lead female character is actually rather wonderful as a figure.

LAWSON:
Tom, there has always been this argument about Brett Easton's work that his fans say he is a moralist where others say his arguments are immoral. Where would you stand?

TOM PAULIN:
I find it utterly disgusting, absolutely terrible, these American undergraduates who bear no relation to any American undergraduate I have ever met or taught. The women are all passive. It's a pornographic movie. It's pornographic, both in the dreadful sex scenes and in the suicide scenes. I was completely disgusted by it. I think it's a very, very stupid film. There is absolutely nothing to be said for this film. It's un-watchable. It's un-redeemable...

LAWSON:
Tom, when you say "stupid and disgusting", he could want us to feel that disgust?

PAULIN:
You would like to think you were looking at a generation that you recognised. I did not recognise this generation.

LAWSON:
That's the problem, it's the 80s generation.

PAULIN:
There is a whole running backwards thing. This is an attempt to say, "Let's do the 60s again." The 60s were only about sex and pornography and pure self-indulgence. There is a lot to be said against the 60s, but they were highly political. It's got nothing to do with politics whatsoever. You can't say that of American undergraduates now.

LAWSON:
It's about, the 80's took the wrong power form the 60's or whatever.

GREER:
I sympathise with what you are saying. Avary messes up at the beginning of the movie. I am not a fan of this guy, but this guy is actually funny. Bret Easton Ellis is making satire...

PAULIN:
Is he?

GREER:
Yes. He is making satire about this age. The age in the 80s was about consumerism, nihilism...

LAWSON:
We accept, even his mild fans accept, he's made a mistake by pretending it's now. It's really about the 80s.

PAULIN:
Let's run it backwards and watch it backwards...

LAWSON:
In its defence there is some beautiful film-making here. The section where they both walk in split screen towards each other. Normally, at that point, most directors bring them face to face. But it's eerie because they are both looking out at us while having a conversation with each other. The separation, all that that implies is beautifully done.

GREER:
It is beautiful film making but Avery, as a screen writer, he did not do adequate service to his actors or to his director. If he had Charlie Kaufman write that screenplay, then we would have got what this book intends.

SAUMAREZ SMITH:
That's also what is slightly repellent about it, all that self-conscious camera work. It's too self-conscious.

PAULIN:
They are trying to incriminate us. The awful, awful scene it opens with, it's so disgusting, utterly dreadful.