Talk about thwarted libidos.

Paul Denton has the hots for the sullen campus drug dealer Sean Bateman, but Sean wants to bed Paul's former girlfriend Lauren Hynde.

Lauren is determined to lose her virginity to the womanizing drama major Victor Johnson, but he's on a sexual jaunt of Europe.

If Victor doesn't get back to campus before the end of term's beer bash, Lauren might just sleep with Sean, but that's not likely to happen because her nymphomaniac roommate Lara Holleran immediately zeroes in on any boy Lauren mentions vaguely interests her sexually.

No wonder these people have no time to go to classes.

Bret Easton Ellis' The Rules of Attraction was written in 1987 as a commentary on the wasted lives of the rich and aimless who made up the bulk of the student body at so many New England liberal arts colleges.

Though director Roger Avary has given The Rules of Attraction a contemporary setting, it still seems like a period piece.

It lacks the necessary urgency that should accompany a cautionary morality tale.

The most interesting thing is the film's casting.

The snarling, sexual predator Sean is played by Dawson's Creek sweet-faced James Van Der Beek and the sexually ravenous Lara is none other than 7th Heaven's Jessica Biel.

The Wonder Years' Fred Savage pops up as a drugged out student and perhaps the most bizarre twist was having Swoosie Kurtz and Faye Dunaway play pill popping, booze swilling mothers of two of the students.

All the characters in The Rules of Attraction are so creepy and unlikable it's difficult to care about what happens to them even if you're intrigued by their escapades.

(This film is rated AA)

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