Solving ‘American Psycho’s Big Mystery
Everything you think you know about this yuppie satire may be wrong.
American Psycho hacked its way into popular consciousness as a potent satire of the 1980s, with its yuppie serial killer Patrick Bateman (a career-making performance by Christian Bale) the perfect embodiment of the “greed is good” mores of the era.
The movie, written and directed by Mary Harron based on Bret Easton Ellis’ pitch-black 1991 novel, came out in 2000 to mixed reviews, with many apparently missing the joke.
The New York Times, however, got it:
“Watching American Psycho is like witnessing a bravura sleight-of-hand feat. In adapting Bret Easton Ellis’s turgid, gory 1991 novel to the screen, the director Mary Harron has boiled a bloated stew of brand names and butchery into a lean and mean horror comedy classic. The transformation is so surprising that when the movie’s over, it feels as if you’ve just seen a magician pull a dancing rabbit out of a top hat.”
At the end of the film, Bateman appears to evade punishment for his escalating series of murders, leading to the recurring question about the movie: Is it all in his head?
ScreenPrism’s canny video reveals both Harron’s and Ellis’ thoughts on the question and mines clues from the movie to come up with some surprising answers.
You’ll want to rewatch the movie to find out that everything you thought about it may be wrong.
Bonus videos: The Soska Sisters (American Mary) and Tribeca Film Festival Programming Director Cara Cusumano both picked American Psycho for their Shortlists. Find out why:
