American Psycho (film)
American Psycho is a 2000 satirical psychological horror film directed by Mary Harron, who co-wrote the screenplay with Guinevere Turner. Based on the 1991 novel by Bret Easton Ellis, it stars Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, a New York City investment banker who leads a double life as a serial killer. Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, Josh Lucas, Chloë Sevigny, Samantha Mathis, Cara Seymour, Justin Theroux, and Reese Witherspoon appear in supporting roles. The film blends horror and black comedy to satirize 1980s yuppie culture and consumerism, exemplified by Bateman and supporting cast.
American Psycho
- Mary Harron
- Guinevere Turner
- Edward R. Pressman
- Chris Hanley
- Christian Halsey Solomon
Andrew Marcus
- Edward R. Pressman Productions
- Muse Productions
- January 21, 2000 (Sundance)
- April 14, 2000 (United States and Canada)
101 minutes[3]
English
$7 million[4]
$34.3 million[4]
Ellis considered his controversial novel unfilmable due to its graphic nature, but producer Edward R. Pressman was determined to adapt it and bought the film rights in 1992. Stuart Gordon, David Cronenberg, and Rob Weiss considered directing the film before Harron and Turner began writing the screenplay in 1996. They sought to make a period film grounded in the 1980s, sharing the setting with the novel. The pre-production period was tumultuous; Harron cast Bale to play Bateman, but because distributor Lionsgate Films secured a contract with Leonardo DiCaprio in the role, Harron was dismissed and replaced with Oliver Stone. Stone made a number of important decisions that remained with the final film, most notably casting Chloë Sevigny. His partnership with DiCaprio was dissolved following creative differences, leading Lionsgate to rehire Harron under the condition she could cast Bale as the lead. Principal photography began in February 1999 in Toronto and New York City.
American Psycho premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2000, and was theatrically released in the United States and Canada on April 14. The film received generally positive reviews, with praise for Bale's performance and the screenplay. Grossing over $34 million on a $7 million budget, the film was considered a box-office success. Following the DVD release in 2005, American Psycho quickly developed a large cult following. The film experienced a revival of popular interest in the 2020s due to its strong presence in contemporary meme culture, typically centered around Bateman's perceived "sigma male" personality.[5] A direct-to-video sequel, American Psycho 2, was released in 2002, although it was criticized by Ellis who maintains it is not a part of the American Psycho narrative.[6]
Plot[edit]
In 1987, Patrick Bateman, a young and wealthy New York City investment banker, spends most of his time dining at popular restaurants while keeping up appearances for his fiancée Evelyn Williams as well as his circle of wealthy associates, most of whom he hates. At a business meeting, Bateman and his associates flaunt their business cards, obsessing over their designs. Enraged by the superiority of his colleague Paul Allen's card, Bateman finds a homeless man and his dog in an alley at night and kills them. Bateman and Allen, who mistakes Bateman for another co-worker, make plans for dinner after a Christmas party. Bateman resents Allen for his affluent lifestyle and ability to obtain reservations at Dorsia, a highly exclusive restaurant which Bateman cannot get into. He gets Allen drunk, lures him to his apartment and kills him with an axe while listening to Huey Lewis and the News and lecturing Allen on the merits of the band. Bateman disposes of the body and goes into Allen's apartment to leave a message on his answering machine claiming that Allen has gone to London.
Private investigator Donald Kimball interviews Bateman regarding Allen's disappearance, mentioning that Allen may have been seen in London. Bateman invites two sex workers, Christie and Sabrina, over to his apartment, where they have sex. He then tortures them, pays them, and sends them on their way. Bateman's colleague Luis Carruthers reveals a new business card, so Bateman tries to strangle him in the restroom of an expensive restaurant. Carruthers mistakes the attempt for a sexual advance and declares his desire for Bateman, who panics and flees. A now suspicious Kimball conducts a second interview with Bateman, who then murders a model and puts her severed head in his freezer. The next day he invites his secretary Jean to dinner, suggesting that she meet him at his apartment for drinks. Bateman is about to kill her with a nail gun when he receives a message from Evelyn on his answering machine and desists.
Bateman has lunch with Kimball, who reveals that a colleague of Bateman claims to have had dinner with him on the day of Allen's disappearance, cementing his alibi. Kimball remarks that the idea of one of Allen's friends murdering him for no reason is simply not believable, to which Bateman nervously smiles. Bateman brings Christie to Allen's apartment, where he drugs his acquaintance Elizabeth before having sex with her and Christie. When Bateman kills Elizabeth, Christie runs, discovering several female corpses as she searches for an exit. A naked Bateman chases her and drops a running chainsaw on her as she flees down a stairwell. Soon after, Bateman breaks off his engagement with Evelyn.
As Bateman uses an ATM, he sees a cat. The ATM then displays the text "Feed Me A Stray Cat" so he prepares to shoot the cat. When a woman confronts him, he instead shoots her. A police chase ensues, but Bateman shoots one of the officers and blows up a patrol car, killing the other policemen. Bateman next kills a security guard and a janitor before hiding in his office. He calls his lawyer Harold Carnes and frantically leaves a confession on his answering machine, claiming to have killed 20–40 people and eaten some of their brains. The following morning, Bateman visits Allen's apartment to clean it, but he finds it vacant and for sale. A realtor cryptically tells him that the apartment does not belong to Allen before asking him to leave and not come back.
In a state of hysteria, Bateman calls Jean, then goes to meet with his colleagues for lunch. Meanwhile, a horrified Jean finds detailed, graphic drawings of murder and mutilation in Bateman's office journal. Bateman sees Carnes and mentions the phone message. Carnes mistakes Bateman for another man and laughs off the confession as a joke. Bateman clarifies who he is and again confesses the murders, but Carnes says his claims are impossible since he recently had dinner with Allen in London. An exhausted and uncertain Bateman returns to his friends; they discuss dinner reservations and muse about whether Ronald Reagan is a harmless old man or a hidden psychopath. Bateman, unsure if his crimes were real or imaginary, realizes he will never receive the punishment he desires. His narration declares that he is in constant pain, that he wishes his pain inflicted on others, and that his confession has meant nothing.
Other cast members include Stephen Bogaert as Harold Carnes, Bateman's lawyer; Reg E. Cathey as Al, a homeless man; Krista Sutton as Sabrina, a sex worker; Catherine Black as Vanden, Williams' cousin; Patricia Gage as Mrs. Wolfe, a real estate agent; and Anthony Lemke as Marcus Halberstram, Bateman's colleague. Former U.S. president Ronald Reagan appears in archive footage of his 1987 address concerning the Iran–Contra affair.
Reception[edit]
Critical response[edit]
American Psycho debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, where it polarized audiences and critics; some praised the film for its writing and performance from Christian Bale, others with criticism for its violent nature.[43] Upon its theatrical release, the film received positive reviews in crucial publications, including The New York Times which called it a "mean and lean horror comedy classic".[44] On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 68% based on 154 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "If it falls short of the deadly satire of Bret Easton Ellis's novel, American Psycho still finds its own blend of horror and humor, thanks in part to a fittingly creepy performance by Christian Bale".[45] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 64 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[46] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D" on an A+ to F scale.[47]
Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, praising the female perspective brought by Harron and Turner because they depict Bateman not as a psychologically disturbed aberration, but as a certain type of selfish, ego-driven male behavior taken to an extreme. Ebert also described Bale as being "heroic in the way he allows the character to leap joyfully into despicability; there is no instinct for self-preservation here, and that is one mark of a good actor".[48] In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan wrote: "The difficult truth is that the more viewers can model themselves after protagonist Bateman, the more they can distance themselves from the human reality of the slick violence that fills the screen and take it all as some kind of a cool joke, the more they are likely to enjoy this stillborn, pointless piece of work".[49] Newsweek magazine's David Ansen wrote: "But after an hour of dissecting the '80s culture of materialism, narcissism and greed, the movie begins to repeat itself. It becomes more grisly and surreal, but not more interesting".[50] In his review for The Village Voice, J. Hoberman wrote: "If anything, Bale is too knowing. He eagerly works within the constraints of the quotation marks Harron puts around his performance".[51]
Rolling Stone's Peter Travers wrote: "Whenever Harron digs beneath the glitzy surface in search of feelings that haven't been desensitized, the horrific and hilarious American Psycho can still strike a raw nerve".[52] In a somewhat positive review for Slate magazine, David Edelstein noted the toned-down brutality and sexual content in comparison to the novel and wrote that the moment where Bateman spares his secretary is when "this one-dimensional film blossoms like a flower".[53] Owen Gleiberman gave the film an "A−" rating, writing for Entertainment Weekly: "By treating the book as raw material for an exuberantly perverse exercise in '80s Nostalgia, Harron recasts the go-go years as a template for the casually brainwashing-consumer/fashion/image culture that emerged from them. She has made a movie that is really a parable of today".[54] Time magazine's Richard Corliss wrote that "Harron and co-screenwriter Guinevere Turner do understand the book, and they want their film to be understood as a period comedy of manners".[55] A.O. Scott (also from The New York Times) praised the film as well.[56]
Bloody Disgusting ranked the film at No. 19 in its list of the "Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade", with the article praising "Christian Bale's disturbing/darkly hilarious turn as serial killer/Manhattan businessman Patrick Bateman, a role that in hindsight couldn't have been played by any other actor. ... At its best, the film reflects our own narcissism, and the shallow American culture it was spawned from, with piercing effectiveness. Much of the credit for this can go to director Mary Harron, whose off-kilter tendencies are a good complement to Ellis's unique style".[57]
Original author Ellis said, "American Psycho was a book I didn't think needed to be turned into a movie", as "the medium of film demands answers", which would make the book "infinitely less interesting".[58] He also said that while the book attempted to add ambiguity to the events and to Bateman's reliability as a narrator, the film appeared to make them completely literal before confusing the issue at the very end.[59] On a 2014 appearance on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, Ellis indicated that his feelings towards the film were more mixed than negative; he reiterated his opinion that his conception of Bateman as an unreliable narrator did not make an entirely successful transition from page to screen, adding that Bateman's narration was so unreliable that even he, as the author of the book, didn't know if Bateman was honestly describing events that actually happened or if he was lying or even hallucinating. Ellis appreciated that the film clarified the humor for audiences who mistook the novel's violence for blatant misogyny as opposed to the deliberately exaggerated satire he'd intended, and liked that it gave his novel "a second life" in introducing it to new readers. Ultimately, Ellis said "the movie was okay, the movie was fine. I just didn't think it needed to be made".[60]
Since the mid-2000s, the film has attracted a sizeable cult following,[61][62][63][64] which has grown in the 2010s due to various social media platforms.[65]
Legacy[edit]
Sequel[edit]
A direct-to-video sequel, American Psycho 2, directed by Morgan J. Freeman and starring Mila Kunis, was released in 2002. The sequel's only connection with the original is the death of Patrick Bateman (played by Michael Kremko wearing a face mask), briefly shown in a flashback. The film was denounced by American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis.[66][67] In 2005, Kunis expressed embarrassment over the film, and spoke out against the idea of a sequel.[68]
In popular culture[edit]
Finnish melodic death metal band Children of Bodom used the film's ending monologue "My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone" as a segue between two songs on their 2003 album Hate Crew Deathroll.
The film's influence can be seen in Kanye West's music video "Love Lockdown"[69] and Maroon 5's music video "Animals".[70]
In 2013, FX and Lionsgate were developing an American Psycho television series that would have served as a sequel to the film.[71] It was to be set in the present, with Patrick Bateman in his 50s, grooming an apprentice (Andrew Low) to be just like him.[72] As of 2024 it is presumed to have been cancelled or in development hell.[73][74]
The character Bateman mistakenly attributes a quote by Edmund Kemper to Ed Gein, which has led to it being mistaken as such by others; Bateman says: "You know what Ed Gein said about women? ... He said 'When I see a pretty girl walking down the street, I think two things. One part of me wants to take her out, talk to her, be real nice and sweet and treat her right ... [the other part wonders] what her head would look like on a stick'".[75]
Funny or Die recreated the "Hip to be Square" scene with Huey Lewis in the Bateman role and "Weird Al" Yankovic in the Allen role. In the scene, Lewis discusses the artistic merits of the film American Psycho and shows the actual scene. It ends with Lewis killing Yankovic saying "Try parodying one of my songs now, you stupid bastard!" The video then plays "I Want a New Duck", Yankovic's parody of the Huey Lewis and the News song "I Want a New Drug".[76]
American metalcore band Ice Nine Kills wrote a song based on the film for their 2021 album The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood called "Hip to Be Scared" and features Papa Roach vocalist Jacoby Shaddix.[77]
The film is frequently a topic of memes and has been said by some to be relevant due to its themes and satirical nature; on the other hand however, the character of Patrick Bateman has seen unironic adoration among men attracted to the idea of the "sigma male" and the capitalist ideals of "hustle culture" espoused by Bateman, even though the film heavily criticizes capitalism and the role of men in society.[78][79][80][81]
