She states that the event really took place, but "in real life, they probably weren't as attractive as they are, and it wasn't all as Penthouse Letters as it is.". The first time we meet the real Paul Allen, he mistakes Bateman for Marcus Halberstram — a mistake he never corrects. First of all, the book and movie are both different. In fact, there are no redeeming qualities about any man in the entire film. As Davis, as Patrick Bateman or as a simple nobody, a confession about the cold-blooded murder of at least forty people, true or not, actually meant nothing. “There are no more barriers to cross. New Feature: Table Support. He just acts out a little more. Decoding American Psycho Materialism and Executive Lifestyle The film is a satirical take on the self-obsessed executive lifestyle of American elites, who resort to materialistic happiness to express their high-class financial position. Posted by Carlo Affatigato. As a result, to date, there exists no singular definition or “meaning” per se of the ending, as I have said before. I think it’s a failure of mine in the final scene because I just got the emphasis wrong. He tells a model that he works mostly in "murders and executions," as opposed to "mergers and acquisitions," and she doesn't bat an eye. That in fact is the pining and towering achievement of ‘American Psycho’s finale, certainly more than the ambiguity of it. American Psycho is filled with ironic and borderline implausible misunderstandings. She's transformed a novel about blood lust into a movie about men's vanity. The camera then shows us the individual in question, who is most definitely not Paul Allen — who's normally played by the recognizable Jared Leto. None of the people involved in either the original novel or the film had anything to do with the "sequel", and Bret Easton Ellis himself has condemned the film, distancing himself and the makers of American Psycho from it and emphasizing that the film is not a part of the official Bateman mythology. “This is not an exit”, as the sign on the door behind Bateman in the closing scene says. This distanci… We never see her, nor is she mentioned previously. Bloody Disgusting ranked it at No. It is a sharp comment on the homogenous nature of the very clothing these men wear, the very talk they talk and the walk they walk; even their visiting cards that were essentially designed to be the same, but ended up being pawns in a game of one-upmanship. Is Christian Bale's character actually the serial killer he claims to be? Read on. I want no escape. American Psycho essays are academic essays for citation. 11. Even the owners of Allen's apartment are willing to dispose of a serial killer's evidence to ensure maximum profit. He calls her during one of his least lucid moments, so he definitely knows, on some level, that Jean is alive. As American Psycho continued its journey from novel to feature, ... and then it ends on the top of the World Trade Center,” Ellis explained. Their attention is firmly focused on acquiring material wealth, lording it over others, and snorting cocaine in club bathrooms. Marcus and I even go to the same barber." It has meant differently to different people, and it continues to do so. 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 toward it, I have now surpassed. More than half of what transpires (or even all of it) might just have been figments of his ripe imagination to say the least: a repressed psyche finding its way out through whatever means. It is like a sadistic puppeteer with all the strings in his hands: the dramatic equivalent of the shedding of masks our unreliable narrator had to don all through the day, pretending to be someone he was not. Consider this piece of dialogue from the beginning of the film as we are just introduced to the character of Patrick Bateman. Sometimes, the method is varied when a killer is starting out, but Patrick is truly all over the map. All of the central characters are male, and many of Bateman's victims are female. He aggressively loses his cool, and even threatens to kill the dry cleaner. Was this all just in his head? The film adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel American Psycho debuted in 2000. However, no one really can predict whether his condition was actually the result of his high pressure, phoney work environment and the pressures of conformity in the elitist circle he found himself a part of, but the film doesn’t fail in making satirical comments about it, making sure the viewer goes home with so much more. In fact, more than the acceptance, it is the drive to stand out from a superficial, homogenized society that drives most of the actions here, and you, sir, sit on a throne of lies if you claim that drive hasn’t gotten to you. All images property of their respective owners. In this competitive hierarchy, the novel's male characters jockey for status not only by constantly impugning each others' masculinity, but also by habitually disparaging women, gay men, people of color, and the homeless. Rather, the film aims to portray the self-indulgent and hedonistic Wall Street elite of 1980s New York in a negative light. While initially appearing straightforward, the movie intentionally unravels at the end, making plenty of people wonder whether or not Patrick Bateman's murders even took place. In that, everything that conspired in the film being narrated by “Patrick Bateman” might actually be just a figment of his imagination, a further extension of his murderous psyche. We also already know from Detective Kimball that Allen was mistakenly identified in London by another individual, meaning the confused Carnes probably dined with someone else entirely. American Psycho is a 2000 American black comedy slasher film co-written and directed by Mary Harron, based on Bret Easton Ellis's 1991 novel of the same name. We have a whole lot of explaining to do for the events that conspired. It makes it look like it was all in his head, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s not.”. David Cronenberg occupied the director's chair before Mary Harron, but instead of hiring a scriptwriter, he asked Bret Easton Ellis to write the script. Where ‘Fight Club’ relies on hardcore commentary from an outsider, ‘American Psycho’ takes the route of a resilient, silent kind of understated satire, often wrapped up as even comic moments in an otherwise dark film, from the insider point of view of someone who is knee-deep into the business, and the chasing of that dream. Paul Allen is on the other side of the room over there." "Are you freebasing," Bryce replies. While having antisocial personality disorder doesn't make someone violent or "evil," Bateman doesn't try to reign in his darker tendencies. Apparently, even with a heavy dose of homicide, those settings are too boring. Linked. Like the Bret Easton Ellis novel that inspired it, the film leaves open the possibility that Patrick Bateman didn’t really kill all those people. His face masks parallel the real mask he wears daily, but as he begins to realize as the film goes on, no amount of hair products and lotion can fill the void he has inside. All of them look and sound almost exactly the same, something that is wonderfully covered and conveyed in one sweeping shot during Patrick’s final confession in voiceover before the film closes. Everyone at the company goes to painstaking lengths to mirror each other's looks, all wanting what they can't have, whether it's someone else's haircut, their girl, or even something as trivial as business cards. After all, how can we believe Carnes when he already mistook Bateman, his own client, whom he speaks to on the phone "all the time," for someone else? It's just as well a woman directed "American Psycho." American Psycho is a film about a man who is unsure about his identity. Then again, where there is prosperity or more particularly, the illusion of it, there is going to be resistance, and what better medium to express that than through the most accessible of art forms, Cinema? Rather, he claimed he was having dinner with other colleagues... including Patrick Bateman. Head on to the next section for that. Their biggest problems revolve around getting dinner reservations at Dorsia. The American Psycho ending has confounded viewers of the film for 20 years. In the two decades that have since passed, literally millions of theories have flooded the internet about the ending of the film, especially the ambiguity of it all. But first, a brief reminiscing of its head-scratcher ending. Now stay with me, since I would want you to spot the oddity or absurdity in every line hereon, something that is so far removed from reality that it doesn’t make the slightest sense. However, the director herself argues against this, and takes the blame for misleading audiences. He rambles, "I killed Bethany, my old girlfriend, with a nail gun." Throughout the entirety of the movie, we see Christian Bale's character repeatedly called names other than Patrick Bateman by various individuals — leading some viewers to question whether or not he really even is Patrick Bateman. We already know mistaken identities are commonplace among the Pierce & Pierce elite, and the film never introduces us to any of the colleagues Bateman supposedly dined with. Coming back to the comparisons with ‘Fight Club’, I am going to drive this discussion in the direction of the big revelation in the finale for both of the films. "American Psycho" has strong acting from "Christain Bale" and "Willem Dafoe". He begins to spiral out of control just as he makes a very frantic and nervous phone call to his assistant, Jean, one of the handful who survived their fate at Patrick’s hand when she was earlier about to be murdered by a nail gun by him. Now, there is a marked difference in what the book intended, what the director intended, and what the film presented, that has actually left behind a huge lack of clarity, but therein lies the beauty of it. In fact, identities are mistaken constantly and in perpetuity. Putting two and two together, she calmly but sternly tells the confused (and lucky) Bateman that she thinks he should leave, not make any trouble, and never come back. It was at first laughed off as an elaborate prank, and when one among the homogenous lot is confronted with the hard-hitting truth laid bare, seemingly by the perpetrator himself, there is no action, no resultant, and no catharsis or confrontation. According to Detective Kimball, Allen was verified to have had dinner with Marcus Halberstram — i.e., the colleague Allen had unknowingly mistaken Bateman for the entire time. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable, I simply am not there.”. I should have left it more open ended. Still, no matter which way you spin it, whether Bateman is a killer or the audience is only watching his delusions play out on-screen, there's no question that Bateman is suffering from a very real disorder. The publication of the novel did not initially prove sweet vindication for Ellis. But … A cat mysteriously appears right in front of him, who he intends to shoot, stopped only by an onlooking woman with Bateman ending up shooting her instead. Before we can talk about the ending of American Psycho, we need to get one thing straight: The term psychopath isn't a clinical diagnosis. When pressed, he says: "Davis, I'm not one to badmouth anyone. According to literary critic Jeffrey W. Hunter, American Psycho is largely a critique of the "shallow and vicious aspects of capitalism". One of the most confusing moments in the film takes place when Bateman shockingly finds Paul Allen's apartment — previously full of dead bodies — spotlessly clean, and being shown to potential tenants. Some people think it was all a fantasy. To his surprise, he is taken aback when he finds that the apartment is up for sale, and that the interiors are all remarkably white. It is the late 1980s in New York city. Browse other questions tagged plot-explanation american-psycho. Now, I can completely guarantee that replacing Patrick Bateman in the above lines with Tyler Durden would still make the lines work. 7. But along with their hydrating factors, he uses products to fake his humanity. It is a social commentary on the sexual insecurity of men, their shallowness, their obsession with materialism to conceal their apathy. But these contradictions offer more food for thought that Bateman has imagined all (or some) of his kills, as he doesn't have a habit of repeating murder weapons. Yes, the ending has been ever questioned and debated upon by the entire fandom of this movie and the book, to this date, and that is what I believe is the beauty of it. Jumping from 20 to 40 is quite the leap, which almost assuredly indicates that Bateman has trouble differentiating between his real murders and his fantasy murders. Peculiarly so, he even names the prostitutes according to his own liking. These are discussed in relation to diagnostic categories. He's losing his mind." Played by Christian Bale, the character Bateman impeccably depicts the behavior of a real psychopath. Serial killers often begin their sprees with someone they know in the heat of the moment, but it's rare to go back-and-forth the way Bateman does. American Psycho: a complete explaination of the movie. 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