American Psycho, the dark comedy adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel by the same name, directed by Mary Harron. This is a movie that I have a special liking to. There’s really nothing like this that I’ve ever seen. Dark, hilarious and a look into the yuppie culture of consumerism of the 80s. So with this analysis, what I want to do is look at what American Psycho was trying to say and what that infamous ending meant. Let’s get right into that, shall we?
We follow Patrick Bateman, played Christian Bale. a wealthy New York investment banker. In the opening monologue of the movie, Patrick describes his lifestyle. His morning exercise and beautification routine, his apartment, his style of clothing and his taste in music. Which through out the movie he mentions extensively. At work he spends most of his time with his shallow associates who share almost the exact same taste as his. Which leads to everyone being mistaken for someone else. Their time revolves around getting dinner reservations at trendy restaurants and showing off their business cards. At day, Patrick lives a shallow and boring life with people he despises including his fiancée Evelyn. At night, Patrick lives a life where he can unleash his murderous tendencies, where he’s in control. Killing hookers and associates that challenge his narcissist personality. This leads to him going on a murderous rampage where we start to question everything that happened prior to this. He confesses to his lawyer on the phone of all the people he’s killed, but this confession gets mistaken as a joke. His lawyer even mistakes Patrick for someone else, calling him a “dork”, “boring”, “spineless” and “lightweight”, someone who doesn’t have the guts to do those things. The movie ends with Patrick realizing there’s no punishment for his actions. No one has noticed what he’s done even after confessing.
“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 from my telling. This confession has meant nothing.”
The movie is obviously left to interpretation. Did Patrick Bateman murder all those people or was it all in his head? We’re given a lot of reasons to believe that all Patrick did was just a part of his sick fantasy and that he never really killed anyone. His secretary, Jean, finds a notepad with drawing of all the horrific things he committed, indicating that everything Patrick did was just in his head. And it doesn’t stop there. Like I said before, Patrick tries multiple times to confess his actions, but every time he’s either misheard or mistaken as a joke. It gets harder to argue against this theory at the end where Patrick’s lawyer reveals that Paul Allen, an associate Patrick killed, was alive and had dinner with Patrick’s lawyer in London. So was the whole movie reality or was it imagination? The director, Mary Harron, said in an interview:
“Everyone has been coming out of this film, thinking it’s all a dream and I never intended it. All I wanted was it to be ambiguous in the way that the book was”
“I should’ve just left it more open-ended. It makes it look like it was all in his head and as far as I’m concerned it’s not”.
The movie’s point was never about Bateman’s murders, but instead it’s true goal was to look into yuppie culture and the empty, shallow life of businessman in the 80s. Obsessed with consumerism, wealth and the way people look at you. There’s not one American Psycho, there’s hundreds. People like Bateman that hide their dark inside and show off their perfect image. An image that is almost identical to everyone else’s. The lack of and melding of identity. So why was the ending left so ambiguous? This doesn’t mean Patrick Bateman isn’t a killer. Patrick is a psychopath, detached from reality, but the movie’s bigger point isn’t Patrick Bateman’s sanity, but the world around him. The world that let’s him continue on. The world that sees no inside. There’s no catharsis. Patrick will just continue on. His pain and lack of identity will continue on.
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