Opens Fri Oct 11 at various theaters.

When you have the job I have, you learn to save "worst of all time" for when it really counts. Having seen The Rules of Attraction, an adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' second novel, I am confident that I have never enjoyed or admired a film less. I can't say definitively that it's the "worst film of all time"--not yet, anyway. It's right up there, though.

How awkward, then, to interview the film's screenwriter/director, Roger Avary, who was a good sport and seemed a clever guy. Too bad about his movie.

SEAN NELSON: I really only have one question.

ROGER AVARY: Go ahead.

What were you thinking?

What was I thinking? [Laughs.] Well, you know, I was thinking about a way to bring about world peace... [laughs more].

How's that working for you?

In my own little way, I think it's working.... You know, I went to a very small liberal arts school in Northern California, which is sort of like the West Coast equivalent to Bennington, the school on which Camden [the school in the film] is based, which is where Easton Ellis went, and Bret writes from a place of truth. He has a photographic memory, so everything he writes is usually sucked out of reality from one place or another. And he's also sort of a social critic--he doesn't write about things he feels he's glorifying; he does the opposite. He writes about that which disgusts him; and his films [sic] are satires, social satires. I've always kind of viewed myself the same way, and I've always loved his work intensely. So I had loved Less Than Zero, and in college I get a first edition of The Rules of Attraction; I start reading it, and I am stunned to discover that it's everything I'm observing around me--the characters are leaping off the page and wandering around on this campus, and I'm observing it all! It was striking, how similar it was to my college experience. I don't know if you've read the book.

I have.

So you know it's a complex book to adapt. I mean, there are multiple first-person narrators, maybe 15 or 20 people throughout the book; they're all recounting similar events from different points of view, so there's this perception/reality kind of Rashomon sort of thing going on. I read the book and immediately thought, "Oh, this has to be a movie, it's so funny, it's so bitingly satirical, it's such a good, perfect criticism." And I could not possibly think at the time--this was what, 12, 13, 15 years ago?--how to translate his literary devices into cinematic devices. So I just kinda put it down and had been thinking about it for 12 years, 15 years. The fact of the matter is, I never thought I would be making this movie. What was I thinking? I was thinking about doing a condemnation of the luxurious debauchery of the ruling class.

I feel like I can see the movie that you see within the movie that you made, but I had such problems with a couple of specific performances, and unfortunately one of them is the lead.

Those are the parts you didn't like?

Not only didn't like. Couldn't bear.

Wow, man, I'd say that you are in the minority. You really do write for the alternative press [laughs].

Yes, well... I was wondering how you defend those performances.

You mean from a moral stance or a technical stance? Because I'll tell you, there have been a number of negative reviews on the film; the first one that came out was Premiere magazine['s]. They hated the film. They called it the worst film of the year. Now I am amused by that article, and delighted by it, because I know it isn't the worst movie of the year. I know that technically--and this sounds like the height of hubris, but I'm defending myself--I think that technically it's a fabulously well-made film, and I think the performances are excellent. So I can't see that criticism, so I immediately think, I must have struck an intense chord with that critic, that they had such an intensely volatile reaction, and they must be reacting to a moral position they're taking on the film. And there's a difference between morally bad and misinterpreting the intention and theme. And there's a difference between that and technically bad. There's one thing I know that I am not, and that is a technically bad filmmaker.

I agree that the movie looks great, and I'm not concerned with the intentional amorality or immorality of the characters' behaviors. The morality I'm concerned with is the morality of performance. I felt James Van Der Beek's performance was extraordinarily vain. His character is, also, but the actor's vanity just leapt off the screen. I call that immoral. I recognized his actions as constructs of the novel and of the movie, so I could accept them... although sometimes they didn't even ring true as fiction. But his performance felt so self-conscious and hyperintentional and awful that the film couldn't absorb it.

Keep in mind that the movie is hyperrealism.

Yeah.

Admit it. You're a Dawson's Creek fan, aren't you?