American Psycho: A Film Review

WARNING: includes minor spoilers for American Psycho (2000)

Cast: Christian Bale, Reese Witherspoon, Jared Leto, Willem Dafoe, Chloe Sevigny, Samantha Mathis and Justin Theroux

Directed by: Mary Harron

Runtime: 101 minutes

Rating: R 18+ (for 18-year-olds and above, not suitable for younger audiences)

Release date: January 21, 2000 (Sundance Film Festival), April 14, 2000 (United States)

I'm going to start this review by opening with the oft-quoted phrase for difficult movies - this film is not for the faint of heart. You have to have both an open mind and a strong stomach to watch this film. It's not as topsy-turvy as most mainstream horror films, but there are some uncomfortable scenes that will leave you squirming in your seat. That being said, it's a brilliant film. If you're into films that have an element of mystery all throughout, and love films that leave you creating theories and analysing the film's content long after you've watched it, then American Psycho is for you. I cannot say enough about this film, only that it deserves a major unpacking and analysis, and that is what I will seek to do in this review. As a result, this film review is going to be much more cerebral and perhaps more difficult to absorb than a lot of my other film reviews, as this is perhaps the most difficult film I have ever watched.

The film opens with a very simple, domestic turn of phrase. We are introduced to our protagonist, Patrick Bateman, as he performs his morning routine. We soon learn he is a Wall Street businessman, and that he has a fiancé, whose name is Evelyn Turner (played by Reese Witherspoon). Right from the outset, the film provides a sense that this protagonist is not like one we've ever met before. Certainly, no swashbuckling hero or down-to-earth personality. Patrick Bateman is quiet, far removed from the industry he seems to work in, meticulous - but the multiple facades Bateman wears throughout the film are an incredible subtle display of his inner psyche and daily thoughts. We also learn of his colleagues, who he very clearly shows both inner and outer disdain for: Paul Allen (played by Jared Leto), Timothy Bryce (played by Justin Theroux), Luis Carruthers (played by Matt Ross), Marcus Halberstram (played by Anthony Lemke), and Craig McDermott and David Van Patten (played by Josh Lucas and Bill Sage respectively).

His interactions with the women in his life aren't much better, either. All of them are fuelled by a sense of competition and a need to fill the inexplicable void in his life that he is unsure of. We witness Bateman work out in his swanky New York apartment to the sound of the film Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) or to some much more unsavoury things being played on screen. I won't fully say them here on Vocal - community guidelines and such.

He possesses a competitive, albeit aggressive nature with his coworkers, losing his marbles (so to speak), when another one of his colleagues - Paul Allen for instance - displays even an iota of better work than he does. His interactions with his fiancé Evelyn, his secretary Jean (played by Chloe Sevigny) and the prostitutes he comes into contact with later in the film are largely the same, framed around his need to fill the unexplained void in his life. He is unhappy with Evelyn, and instead turns to Luis Carruthers' own fiancé, Courtney (played by Samantha Mathis) for a sense of happiness, which he very rarely finds.

The entire film is permeated by murder and gore performed by Bateman that may or may not even be real. The most notable murder in the film - that of Paul Allen after he displays a better-looking business card than Bateman's - immediately brings a more eerie air to it. Things Bateman says and does are entirely unfiltered, yet no one around him makes a response to it. There's a scene where he takes bloodied sheets to a drycleaner, and the woman there tells him that there isn't anything on it, to which he loudly protests that he wants to murder her. No reaction there. Another scene comes to mind, when he is at a bar with some of his colleagues, and the bartender demands an alternative form of monetary payment for drinks, to which he also loudly insists that he wishes to hurt and kill her. Also no reaction. There are at least three to four scenes in the film in which he says something murder-y, but there is no reaction from anyone around him.

Might I add, the Paul Allen death scene, among many of the other ones in the film, is actually rather hilarious, in a morbid sense. Although I think I was more laughing at the re-enactment that my boyfriend was doing in the middle of the movie. But still, for a horror/mystery, the scene is unintentionally comedic. I've attached the link below, so you'll be able to watch it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bo-OLCXu6g

Truly, this film is a disturbing work of art, and Christian Bale plays Bateman to perfection. There's so many scenes that I'd like to analyse, but I'll skip to the end scene of the film to analyse it. There's so much depth in this end scene, from Bateman's frantic behaviour before entering the restaurant, to his interaction with his lawyer, Harold Carnes (played by Stephen Bogaert) and to the very end of the film, where the last of his inner monologues begins. Might I add, the inner monologues in this film are brilliant. I've never seen inner monologues played to this level of perfection before, and it shows so much of Bateman's inner psyche where spoken dialogue is absent.

Back to the end scene. This scene comes after he's murdered several people, namely a woman in an alleyway, a janitor, two desk attendants, one or two police officers, then leaves a frantic voicemail message to his lawyer admitting to the murders. He leaves the next day to head to an upscale restaurant to meet with his colleagues and sees his lawyer, asking him almost immediately if he received the voicemail. From the outset of the scene, we see Bateman's cool, unbothered, work-related mask, fall apart very quickly. The physical manifestation of this begins when he has run to the restaurant in a rush, and he smooths back his hair hurriedly, and it ends when he and his colleagues are watching a recording of President Ronald Reagan on the television and he's sweating bullets.

The lawyer, upon the admission of the murders, thinks it to be a practical joke, especially when he admits to the murder of Paul Allen. The lawyer tells him he had dinner twice with Allen in London, where Bateman had said he was going in another fake voicemail he'd made, impersonating Allen shortly after his "death". Up until this scene, Patrick Bateman does not see himself as a person. Rather, he sees himself as an entity, and this is what I meant earlier, in the strictest sense that Bateman isn't your cut and dry, run of the mill protagonist. But in this scene, Bateman begs his lawyer to be heard, saying to him repeatedly, "I am Patrick Bateman", as the other man continues to believe he's telling a practical joke, and is someone else who has assumed the identity of Patrick Bateman.

What makes this film even more eerie is the fact that everyone keeps mistaking each other for each other. Bateman mistakes Allen for Halberstram, and this happens multiple times in the film. As Bateman sits down at the table in the end scene with his colleagues as they're watching the broadcast of Ronald Reagan he says something incredibly profound just before the credits roll, and it truly brings the film around full circle. What makes this last scene even more strange is that it is juxtaposed with an earlier scene just before the climax of the film, where Bateman's secretary, Jean, finds several disturbing drawings of death and murder in his office diary, mirroring the deaths of the people near the end of the film, as well as the two prostitutes in the middle, and Paul Allen's death.

'There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil. All the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference towards it, I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp, and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this, there is no catharsis. My punishment continues to elude me, and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself. No new knowledge can be extracted by my telling. This confession has meant - nothing.' - Patrick Bateman, American Psycho (2000)

It's a truly brilliant quote, and it drives home the point of the movie: that Patrick Bateman hates himself for these thoughts of murder he has, and wishes to punish himself somehow for them, but he doesn't know how. All that he knows is that he wishes to inflict pain. For people like Jean, his secretary, he truly likes her. There are moments of affection that he has for her, but he knows he'll hurt her, so he sends her away to avoid that happening. Unlike with the prostitutes, or even with his fiancé Evelyn, he truly holds some degree of affection for Jean, but even that is overshadowed by the drawings she finds in his office several scenes later.

That also brings me to some questions about the film, and if you've seen American Psycho, please feel free to comment with your own theories and answers.

Were the murders all just in his head?

Is Paul Allen actually still alive, if we're to believe the lawyer's account?

We can't trust Patrick Bateman's word. He's an unreliable narrator, with multiple alibis for every murder he may or may not have committed, and there are way too many gaps in his memory to actually take what he says as gospel truth. The drawings are most definitely real, though.

This film is genuinely one of the best films I've ever watched, and while I've never been into horror as a genre, this film handled horror so well, and I do always enjoy a film that allows me to think long and hard long after the credits roll.

Again, stay tuned for more great film reviews, and keep in touch with my Wattpad page, as well as my new podcast, Bookish Wonderland, on Spotify and YouTube. And please donate money where you can, so I can keep making this great content for you!!