American Psycho

[anogete]

I think in about 10 or 15 years, American Psycho will attain a sort of cult status. I would say this about Fight Club as well, but I thought that movie went downhill after the first forty-five minutes. Anyway, American Psycho was great. Not one of my top ten, but it was definitely worth my time and energy. Jason had seen it before, but I don't think he was paying all that much attention the first time 'round. He just now started to understand the story. I began to suspect that the murders were simply Patrick's delusions when he killed the escort and hooker. The clues that were dropped were so obvious. Why would he hide multiple bodies in the empty apartment of a man who is missing? Wouldn't this man's family be by to check on the apartment? Beyond that, the scene in the hallway with the chainsaw...come on... How could he possibly clean that up without others seeing or hearing him? So, the big reveal at the end wasn't all that much of a shock to me. The notebook that his secretary finds was an excellent touch though. A subtle way to show us that they really were all delusions. However, I do believe that the two instances where he came close to killing, but backed off were real and not imagined. The bathroom scene where he nearly strangled a coworker, but stopped himself and the scene with his secretary in his apartment where he asked her to leave for her own safety.

The superficiality of his world was to the extreme - almost a caricature of the world we all live in, yet not so out-there that you can't see it if you pay close attention to everyday life. I don't know if the movie didn't do too well with the general audience because people just didn't get it or if the audience was made uncomfortable by the message that Patrick could be anyone. Look at all this media shoved down our throats. You should like this song, this band, this exfoliating shower gel, this clothing designer, this restaurant. It's enough to numb a person, turn that person into a machine that is incapable of feeling his or her life unless drastic measures are taken. Patrick's drastic measures weren't drugs, alcohol, or even extremely promiscuous sex, but thoughts of murder and thereby a sense of power and exhilaration over life itself. Though he had extremely violent fantasies, he was unable to carry them out when it came down to it. How many of us could claim to have been in that boat at one point or another? I'd like to think that its lack of popularity is due to everyone's uneasiness with considering Patrick to be a small part of themselves. But in reality I think that it didn't connect with people because they just didn't get it.

Comments

[donttouchmyhat.livejournal.com]

A fine review! Impressive, young Siskel, most impressive ;)

I believe you're right - and perhaps another reason it didn't connect with audiences is that it *was* a very 80's mind-set movie; the image of the coked up yuppie just ain't been the same since Nirvana.

[cloggedthought.livejournal.com]

Never seen it, I'll have to watch it. I have found some movies really strike me but other don't get 'em. Maybe this one for you that's the same way.

[donttouchmyhat.livejournal.com]

Could be. I was interested all the way through, and certainly disturbed at some points, but it didn't take hold of me the way other ones have like, say, "Memento."

[anogete.livejournal.com]

It's a good watch. Like I said, it wasn't one of those movies where I feel like I have to OWN a copy of it, but I enjoyed it.

[anogete.livejournal.com]

I always think of guppies when I hear the work yuppies. Guppies are cute, yuppies are not.

[donttouchmyhat.livejournal.com]

Not cute, but they do tend to group.

[falco-conlon.livejournal.com]

Really? I don't know what it was about the movie but it didn't really do it for me.

Fight Club on the other hand. Wooooo boy. That movie kinda sorta really blew me away. A lot. And not just because of Brad Pitt and Edward Norton's gorgeousness.

Very good review though! Cleared some things up for me. I figured they were dilusions but then end didn't really make that obvious to me.

[fearful-syzygy.livejournal.com]

I suppose you think that really was cranberry juice on his sheets, then?

I dunno. Have you read the book? The film definitely subscribes to the theory that it's all in Bateman's head, but in the book it's not so clear cut. I don't know if you remember, but when it was first published there was a huge brouhaha because of all the gratuitous sex and violence in the book, but then once someone suggested that it was all in his head it quieted down, as if that were somehow more acceptable, and we could all rest easy in the assurance that none of it 'really' happened. I don't really get it, because the words on the page are still the same, and it's all a work of fiction anyway, right?

Personally, I read the whole 'you can't have killed him because I saw him in London last week' as a comment on how all the yuppies look the same, and they're all actually clones of each other. Compare the hilarious business card scene. Throughout the book, Bateman is constantly mistaken for someone else, and sometimes he corrects them but other times he lets it slide, mainly, one assumes, because he can't tell who the hell he's talking to either.

For instance, I can't remember if this is in the film, but in the book, after he leaves the hysterical message on his lawyer's answering machine confessing all his crimes, he meets the guy in person, who says he found thought it was hilarious for him to have pretended to be Bateman like that, because 'he's such a dumbass' and there's no way he could have done all those things. Also once he's killed Allen, he actually moves into his place (is that in the film as well?), at least for a little while, and invites a couple of chicks up there, one of whom says she likes this place better than his old one, again even though they're exactly the same, and so he kills her, one assumes, as a direct result of this slight.

When he then finally returns to the apartment and finds it's been completely repainted and is up for sale, the estate agent tells him it's better if he leaves right now, and gives him a stern look. I suppose it's possible to read that as her just thinking he's insane, but I preferred to see it as she knows he's responsible, and that the bloodbath's been cleaned up and hushed up in favour of selling the place no questions asked. After all it's easier to sell a penthouse apartment if the new owners don't think it's been the site of a brutal mass murder. In other words the estate agents (and, I suppose, Allen's family) are more interested in making money off the place than in investigating the previous owner's murder.

If it's all in his head, the social satire doesn't seem to have quite so much bite, which is perhaps why people were more willing to accept that interpretation, once it came along.

[anogete.livejournal.com]

Now I want to read the book. I hadn't heard anything about the movie's faithfulness to the book, so it appears that the book skews things a little differently. I'll put it on the never-ending list of books-to-read.

[fearful-syzygy.livejournal.com]

I don't think the film is unfaithful to the book, per se, but it definitely comes down on the side of 'psychotic delusion', whereas the book is more open to interpretation. At least it was for me.

I think it's worth reading, if only to dispel the largely mistaken view that it's just a sick series of brutal murders and pornographic sex. Sure they're there, and some passages really do turn your stomach, but mostly the book is just hilariously funny. Particularly the surreal bit where he meets Tom Cruise in the lift and tells him that he really liked him in 'Bartender'. =D