Just when you may have thought a movie packed full of drugs, sex and rock ‘n’ roll could never seem stale, along comes “The Rules of Attraction” to prove you oh-so-wrong.

The film has brilliant camera work and is marvelously executed by Roger Avary, the film’s writer/director. However, we struggle to find reason behind his actions. Like a kid with a new toy, he wants to show us all of the things it can do. He runs characters in reverse, maybe to show how they are actually regressing as the film goes on, or maybe because it gives the movie an off-the-wall feeling to match the obscure, unusual novel on which it is based.

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Written through the perspective of its superficial, pretentious characters, the novel by Bret Easton Ellis offers a great take on modernity and bisexuality in the 80s. Avary drops these themes, advances the timeline to the present day and, in turn, loses the chance to make a point with this film. The audience will walk out of the theater not knowing anything more about the characters then when they went in.

Sean Bateman (James Van Der Beek) is a student who wants to do no more than eat, fornicate, smoke some dope, snort some coke, fornicate some more, then maybe sleep for a while. Yes, Ellis fans, Sean is the younger brother of Patrick Bateman, the materialistic, manic star of Ellis’ cult classic, “American Psycho.” Sean begins to fall in love with Lauren (Shannyn Sossamon), a fellow student, but for what reason? Should I not care? Okay, I guess I won’t.

Lauren is virginal, ready to lose her innocence to Bateman. But why Bateman? Why is she attracted to this mess of a person? Are there no “rules of attraction” in “The Rules of Attraction?” That is a question worth answering, right? Too bad it never happens.

One could go on and on about all the characters in this film, but there’s no point. They are simply no different from one another. They are all horrid excuses for human beings serving no purpose through their existence. People aren’t born like this, are they? Could something have happened to them at one point to make them end up like this? Questions like these make this film damn near frustrating.

The most discouraging element comes from the potential that Avary’s talents bring to the table. There is a scene involving suicide that is easily the film’s most powerful moment. Instead of using fancy editing and quick movements, Avary sits the camera still on a girl’s face as she waits for the life to literally pour out of her veins. A tilted camera and the last few drops of water into a bathtub make us literally feel her death. A long shot of a bathtub full of blood shows us what we already know.

The enormous skill he displays in this scene could make one wonder if Avary just saw the rest of the story as filler, and used the suicide scene to make a real impression on the audience. Now it’s time for Avary to use his skills on a new project, one with characters and a plot worthy of his talents.

Avary is ready to become the next great auteur of his generation. “The Rules of Attraction,” however, will serve only as a speed bump in the road taking him there.