Day 81: American Psycho

Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) works on Wall Street and spends his time in fancy restaurants with his successful acquaintances but his friendly personality is all a front for the murderous feelings he has inside. As the film progresses, he finds it more difficult to control his urge to kill and he has a bit of a meltdown and confesses all his crimes to his lawyer.

The ambiguity surrounding whether he was actually killing people or it was all in his imagination is quite interesting. It’s good when it’s left up to the viewer to decide what has actually happened. It seems to me that he did kill all those people but he just got away with it because nobody wanted the hassle of properly dealing with something. Like when Bateman goes back to the apartment where he killed lots of women and it’s all painted over and the real estate woman is trying to get rid of him. It came across like she knew what had happened there but knew it would affect the sale of the place so she wants him gone. Money is more important than what happened to the women there. And when he is trying to confess to his lawyer that he killed everyone and Paul Allen (Jared Leto), the lawyer thinks he is kidding because he had lunch with Paul. However, everyone keeps getting each other’s names wrong so it’s more likely that the lawyer just didn’t care enough about who he was having lunch with to get the name right.

I liked the use of mistaken identity to show how similar all the men are. They’re always confusing each other for someone else because they all look practically identical, they’re all going to the same places and they’re all doing the same job (they’re all vice presidents, according to their business cards). It’s difficult to tell anyone apart because they’re all doing so well at being the same. Nobody has any facets to their personality that aren’t replicated in everyone around them, they all come across as shallow and money-driven. None of them really listen to each other, which you can clearly see when Bateman has his various outbursts (like saying how he likes to dissect girls). What he says is usually ignored or dismissed as a joke. Nobody really cares to listen to anyone else, so they don’t take him seriously.

“I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust. Something horrible is happening inside of me and I don’t know why. My nightly bloodlust has overflown into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip.”

7/10