Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
The incredibly spoiled and overprivileged students of Camden College are a backdrop for an unusual love triangle between a drug dealer, a virgin and a bisexual classmate.
Roger Avary's adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's novel is a genuinely distinctive piece of early-2000s indie filmmaking. The cinematography is a standout — reverse-motion sequences, split-screen storytelling, and bold stylistic choices give it a singular visual identity. Novelty is high because the film's fractured, nihilistic tone and unconventional narrative structure make it unmistakably itself, even within the campus drama genre. The acting is serviceable and occasionally strong (James Van Der Beek subverting his image effectively), but uneven across the ensemble. The plot captures the aimless moral vacuum of its characters faithfully but can feel deliberately alienating to a fault. The ending, while thematically coherent with the story's bleak worldview, lands on a note that feels more deflating than resonant.