James Van Der Beek is best remembered for the earnest vulnerability he brought to Dawson’s Creek—but he didn’t stay boxed into that wholesome image. In 2002’s The Rules of Attraction, adapted from Bret Easton Ellis’s novel and directed by Roger Avary, he stepped into a darker, more ambiguous role as Sean Bateman. The part, combined with Van Der Beek’s outspoken support for LGBTQ+ rights, helped him connect with queer audiences in unexpected ways.
What the film does and why it mattered
The Rules of Attraction rejects tidy storytelling. It’s a deliberately fractured study of desire and disaffection, built from competing first-person narrators, flashbacks and tonal shifts that undermine any single “truth.” At its center is a triangular web of college students whose impulses dismantle ordinary romantic narratives. The result is a darkly comic, often abrasive film that treats sex and yearning with a frankness rare in early-2000s teen movies.
Rather than smoothing over contradictions, the film foregrounds them. Its fragmented structure refuses easy sympathy and often feels like a provocation: a movie that dares viewers not to like its characters while still asking them to understand why those characters hurt one another.
Character dynamics and queer resonance
The emotional engine of the film is the fraught relationship between Sean and Paul (played by Ian Somerhalder). Paul’s longing—at times tender, at times desperate—reads as painfully familiar to anyone who has loved a friend in silence. Sean, for his part, is handsome, self-involved and evasive; his coolness fuels most of the film’s tension.
That push-and-pull—desire met with denial—repeats across the story. The film’s candid approach to sexuality, refusing to sanitize or neatly categorize Paul’s feelings, made it resonate with queer viewers who saw something recognizably messy and real on screen.
Cinematic technique: imagination versus reality
Avary’s formal choices make private longing visible without slipping into cheap melodrama. Split-screen sequences and point-of-view edits set fantasy and reality side by side: one frame blossoms with vivid, imagined tableaux of Paul’s hopes; the other returns to the quieter truth of unreciprocated desire and solitude.
This contrast is less ornamentation than a diagnostic tool. The technique lets the audience inhabit Paul’s interior life while remaining anchored by restrained performances. Subtle acting keeps empathy believable, so the visual flourishes reinforce emotional truth rather than obscuring it.
Representation with nuance
For its time, the film’s openness about sex and identity felt unusually candid. Paul is not shamed into invisibility; his affections and their consequences play out within a messy, believable emotional landscape. That complexity—helped by Somerhalder’s vulnerability and Van Der Beek’s unsettling charm—cemented the film’s place among audiences attuned to queer experience.
Van Der Beek’s choices on- and off-screen
Offscreen, Van Der Beek didn’t simply play complicated characters—he used his platform. He publicly supported marriage equality before it became a mainstream stance and participated in satirical activism, such as a Funny or Die sketch opposing discriminatory “religious freedom” laws. Those gestures bolstered his reputation as an ally rather than merely an actor who happened to appear in edgy work.
He also leaned into roles that undercut his teen-idol image. On Don’t Trust the B— in Apartment 23 he played a heightened, self-mocking version of himself; he took small parts that intersected with queer culture and even filmed a subplot for Pose that wasn’t used. These moves felt less like damage control and more like deliberate reinvention—an attempt to expand how audiences perceived him.
What the film does and why it mattered
The Rules of Attraction rejects tidy storytelling. It’s a deliberately fractured study of desire and disaffection, built from competing first-person narrators, flashbacks and tonal shifts that undermine any single “truth.” At its center is a triangular web of college students whose impulses dismantle ordinary romantic narratives. The result is a darkly comic, often abrasive film that treats sex and yearning with a frankness rare in early-2000s teen movies.0