American Psycho [2000]
Director: Mary Harron
Actor: Christian Bale, Justin Theroux, Reese Witherspoon, Willem Dafoe
Where to begin; I read the book by Bret Easton Ellis for my English class when I was 14 or 15 years old, and I remember finding it incredibly boring. There are whole pages in the book devoted to Patrick Bateman’s (main character) description of his new hifi system, and I admit to skipping certain pages to get to the good bits. Obviously I didn’t have the patience, or perhaps I just didn’t get it. But now the story appeals to me a lot, since it’s a sincere accussation towards the materialism and greed of American society in the mid-80’s.
Wallstreet operatives were considered to be rock and roll superstars, which is still the case a bit, but certainly not in the way the way they were venerated as much as in the 80s. Films like Wallstreet and Glengarry Glen Ross are good examples of that. Boilerroom is a more recent example. Their splurging and excesses are widely shown in the film, and it seems to go hand in hand with a profound shallowness, and Patrick Bateman is the pinnacle of that shallowness. He is not really a person, so he keeps saying, he’s a man, made of flesh and blood, but he has no identifiable human emotions, except greed and disgust. He is an avatar of the Wallstreet greed and excesses as described in the film. It’s only a small step from that, to the definition of a pyschopath; someone who has no moral responsibility or social conscience. Someone who has a hard time relating to others.
Patrick Bateman has all these things, and the only way he feels anything is when he resorts to homocidal tendencies on a massive scale. His urges are getting out of control and it all slowly spirals out of control.
Great film with great acting on the part of Bale and Dafoe. The pace is great, and the styling is almost perfect. Bale looks appropriately plastic, with his perfect skin, $70 haircut and Valentino suits.
