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American psycho explained: what it really means.

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American Psycho Soundtrack: Every Song & When It Plays

American psycho cast & character guide, keanu reeves confirmed "i'm in" for matrix 5 return 3 years ago under 1 condition.

• Patrick Bateman in American Psycho symbolizes the violence of corporate greed through his casual cruelty and violent sadism.
• The ambiguous ending of American Psycho questions Bateman's motives and demonstrates the callousness of his friends and colleagues.
• Christian Bale's portrayal of Patrick Bateman sheds light on the character's unsavory views and the troubling admiration he receives from real-life traders.

The real American Psycho meaning is hard to explain, as the film's deeply psychotic protagonist and ambiguous ending make its general message somewhat difficult to unravel. Based on the 1991 Bret Easton Ellis novel, American Psycho follows New York investment banker and unchecked serial killer Patrick Bateman. Christian Bale's performance as Patrick Bateman is iconic and secured American Psycho a cult following that's endured over two decades. Patrick Bateman indulges his most violent urges in American Psycho , acting on every sadistic impulse without any consequence in his Wall Street life.

The film was every bit as controversial as Ellis' novel — little surprise when Ellis himself considered the literary Bateman's descent into depravity and true madness too shocking for cinema. urra culminates on a decidedly ambiguous note which calls many of the previous events of the narrative into question. Many viewers come to the conclusion American Psycho made use of the oft-bemoaned "it was all a dream" trope. However, director Mary Harron stated otherwise. Instead, American Psycho explained Bateman's true nature, rephrasing the entire story in a new light, even if it is easy to miss.

Watch American Psycho on Peacock

American Psycho's Patrick Bateman might be a walking red flag, but he has quite a diverse taste in music and an exquisite record collection.

American Psycho Uses Real Violence As A Stand-In For Corporate Greed

Patrick bateman's violent sadism is why he's a cultural icon.

American Psycho' s meaning is a commentary on the inherent violence of corporate greed. Christian Bale's movie roles are carefully picked, and he has a preference for stories that dig deep into human nature . Patrick Bateman's casual cruelty and violent sadism are key elements of his characterization , and why he's such a cultural icon. The carnage he causes is a direct example of the American Psycho explained metaphor — violence as a stand-in for corporate greed. The murder spree in American Psycho starts with Bateman being selective and deliberate but escalates for increasingly trivial reasons.

This directly parallels the callous corporate violence Bateman enacts on a whim every day on Wall Street , making decisions that cause financial ruin for others just to brag in the boardroom. American Psycho explained that its violence represents rampantly spiraling greed. Bateman's bloodlust is as insatiable as his colleagues' thirst for profit. His murder of Paul Allen is a key piece of evidence for this, as it represents Bateman's willingness to get ahead by killing his colleagues. Bateman getting away with his actions, proving the indifference that others in his social circles feel towards that level of violence.

On a superficial level, the violence of American Psycho may seem excessive and gratuitous where the story's concerned, but that the violence is so excessive and goes largely unnoticed hits on the absurdity of Bateman's sadism — and thus the absurdity of real-life Wall Street's. Through its brilliant cinematic narrative, American Psycho explained real-life corporate greed through the much more visceral and relatable elements of raw, unhinged violence. Notably, abandoning these compelling themes is why the sequel American Psycho 2: All American Girl didn't do as well as the movie.

American Psycho Is Actually About Patrick Bateman's Moral Awakening

Bateman begins to make sense of the person he has become.

What's less obvious is that American Psycho is actually about Patrick Bateman gaining - not losing - his moral clarity. After Bateman murders his co-worker, Paul Allen, American Psycho explained that Bateman's grip on his double life begins to unravel, as the veil between his two personas begins to slip. As this threatens to consume Bateman entirely, American Psycho ends with him attempting to force others to hold him accountable for his actions. Indeed, it's clear that the film's story follows Bateman as he begins to make sense of the person he has become .

When he can no longer contain the casual cruelty of his hidden persona, his life begins to fall apart, although none of his colleagues seem to care — another moment American Psycho's theme of corporate callousness shows. The bodies disappearing from Paul's apartment in American Psycho explained that the world around Patrick doesn't care about his actions , even as he attempts to come clean. American Psycho explained that Bateman regains his senses while the world remains oblivious to their own greed and corruption.

Patrick Bateman Is Meant To Be An Unreliable Narrator (Because Of His Identity Crisis)

The identity crisis is at the core of bateman's psychosis.

One of the most common misunderstandings about American Psycho stems from its ambiguous ending painting Patrick Bateman as an unreliable narrator. However, the fact that the ending calls Bateman's integrity into question is exactly the point, as it feeds into one of the film's most consistent themes: identity. A key piece of evidence for this is during American Psycho' s mistaken identity moment when Paul confuses Bateman for Marcus Halberstram , triggering the violent murder of Paul Allen (and Bateman's subsequent moral awakening).

American Psycho explained that the idea that Bateman is in the throes of an identity crisis also fits with the film's message about greed. Though Bateman has been enjoying the affluent lifestyle his own greed and corruption have bought him, he's no longer sure exactly who he is. This identity crisis is at the core of his psychosis , and though it makes him an unreliable narrator, it doesn't necessarily do so in the way that the most common interpretation of American Psycho 's ending would suggest.

Why American Psycho's Ambiguous Ending Doesn't Matter

Bateman's friends & colleagues are all as guilty as he is.

The ending of the movie is deliberately ambiguous. The hidden meaning of American Psycho wouldn't be such a talking point if it wasn't, after all. However, it's not intended to call Bateman's actions into question, but rather his motives. One of the reasons that American Psycho gets better upon rewatching is that the finer details point towards a far more satisfying conclusion: the ambiguity of the ending is exactly the point.

As American Psycho explained, Patrick Bateman is an unreliable narrator, so it's easy to assume that the murders didn't happen. Instead, the ending should call into question why no one else is addressing Bateman's troubling comments , and that's where its real ambiguity comes in. The fact that none of Bateman's friends and colleagues are willing to entertain his admission of guilt as serious is evidence that they are all as unreliable as he is and that all of American Psycho 's characters are every bit as guilty as Bateman.

American Psycho is a brutal American satire that stars Christian Bale as a businessman turned serial killer, alongside a great supporting cast.

Misinterpreting American Psycho May Be Fueling Extremism

Patrick bateman has been compared to todd phillips's joker.

American Psycho 's success has raised questions about whether Patrick Bateman's character actually fueled extremism — a concern that often arises when a movie complexly examines morality using violence as a lens. American Psycho was released back in 2000, and it's interesting how decades later, movies like the controversial 2010s movie Joker still have to tackle the same issues (and rebuff the same critique).

Like Joker director Todd Phillips, American Psycho director Mary Harron has had to deal with not just the controversial audience and critical reception, but also the possibility that misinterpretations about the movie could be reinforcing anti-social movements and ideologies . Harron explained (via Vulture ) how Bateman and the Joker, both incredibly violent psychopaths, are so impactful because they naturally put audiences in an uncomfortable position. As Harron said:

"Even though I think the movie is pretty clear — this guy is psycho — you’ve followed him through his vulnerability and his being humiliated and neglected and used by the world and the people around him. And there’s an element where you’re identifying with him. The same conversation happens over and over every so often with a film that is upsetting or disturbing, which is a part of what movies are and do. Then everything settles down. It’s crazy to me that everyone talks about American Psycho in such reverent terms."

While American Psycho and similar movies like Joker and Fight Club critique masculine toxicity , it's plain they can inadvertently inspire these same anti-social elements in society. Sadly, it seems that American Psycho explained Patrick Bateman's psychotic nihilism as endearing by some incredibly lost individuals — an aspiration, rather than a warning. That said, just like how the controversy about Joker and Fight Club actually helped prop up these movies, the social criticisms do the same for American Psycho .

While the iconic status of these movies is well-deserved, particularly because of how their respective controversies reveal how deeply they tap into human nature, it's still worth examining how these highly influential cultural products can change people's actions and ways of thinking . Perhaps future movies like American Psycho should come with a clear disclaimer that it's a critique of the behaviors shown and not an endorsement. Even if Patrick Batman has inspired real-life extremism though, the fault doesn't lie with director Mary Harron or the movie itself — no movie is responsible for real-life violence.

What Christian Bale Thinks Of American Psycho's True Meaning

Bale spent time with real-life traders who loved patrick bateman.

American Psycho explained some of Bateman's most unsavory views and practices, but what does Christian Bale think of his role as the iconic character? Sitting down with GQ , Bale discussed some of his most prolific acting roles, and the topic of Patrick Bateman came up. To prepare for the role, Bale spent some time on Wall Street at the NYC stock exchange and got to experience what it was like on the trading floor. He had various conversations with the men that American Psycho was supposed to be depicting, and some of their comments turned out to be troubling.

"[...] but the guys on the trading floor, when I arrived there before making the film, I got there and a bunch of 'em, they were going ‘oh yeah, we love Patrick Bateman’. And I was like, ‘yeah, ironically, right?’, and they were like, ‘what do you mean?’"

The remarks of these individuals are certainly worrisome. American Psycho was meant to critique toxic masculinity, and Patrick Bateman was never meant to be a sympathetic character . The fact that people in positions of power and affluence could sympathize and even "love" Bateman's character proves that there's a larger problem beneath the surface. While the people on the trading floor that Bale met may find something positive in Bateman's character, at least The Dark Knight actor understands what Patrick Bateman from American Psycho was supposed to represent.

How The American Psycho Meaning Compares To The Book

Bateman is more of a serial killer in the book.

There were several differences between the American Psycho book and movie , some of which changed the American Psycho meaning. In the movie, the murders were mostly confined to the corporate world and Patrick Bateman's personal life. However, in the book, Bateman kills more mercilessly and will often kill people who have nothing to do with the themes of corporate greed and his own isolation. At one point in the book, he kills a man who hits on him in Central Park. He not only kills the man because of his sexuality, but he murders the man's dog as well.

One disturbing scene in the book comes with the murder of a young child at the zoo. In the book, Bateman slices the neck of the boy, enjoying the moment. However, later he regrets this and feels that he killed someone who had no real mistakes to pay for. This made him seem like someone killing people who deserved it, and it showed that when he regretted a kill that broke that entire mantra. He killed 23 people in the movie and murdered over 50 in the book, changing the American Psycho meaning to something even darker.

American Psycho

Based on the book of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho follows Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) an investment banker in New York in 1987 who leads a double life as a serial killer. As investigators circle Bateman after the disappearance of a colleague, he finds himself trapped in a spiral of murder and excess, unable to stop himself from giving in to his increasingly dark urges. Also stars Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, Justin Theroux, and Reese Witherspoon. 

Themes and Analysis

American psycho, by bret easton ellis.

Laced with themes about societal decadence and materialism, 'American Psycho' has become somewhat of a warning for the masses.

Article written by Joshua Ehiosun

C2 certified writer.

Following the story of a late 1980s Wall Street psychopath, ‘ American Psycho ‘ is a novel that portrays a world drenched in vanity and blatant consumerism. It shows the double-faced nature of protagonist Patrick Bateman, a serial killer struggling to fit into a world where people are judged based on life’s superficialities. As Patrick struggles to define himself outside the world’s vanities, his life takes a downturn as he finds solace in the ideas he publicly decries.

Consumerism and Materialism

The beginning of the second chapter of ‘American Psycho’ by Bret Easton Ellis follows a detailed description of Patrick Bateman’s living room and morning routine. Patrick narrates how pristine his electronics are, how much of incredibly disciplined he is, and how good his life is. However, he focuses on the objects he owns and how much value they add to his ego; this becomes a central theme for most of the story in ‘ American Psycho .’

As Patrick’s life begins unfolding, a trend of intense addiction to materialism begins to take form. It gets so bad that Bateman feels like the world may end simply because his card was not the best on the block. Even among his friends, who are like him in almost every way, the intense focus on material objects shows how broken society is.

Another crucial aspect of the consumerist nature of Patrick and his group is their obsession and greed. Throughout the novel, when Bateman meets a person for the first time, the first thing he does is gauge their level of wealth by describing the nitty-gritty details of their fashion. Anytime he meets someone with a better sense of style or wealth, he instantly dislikes the person; this leads him down the dark path of committing murder.

Societal Decadence and Vanity

In ‘American Psycho,’ New York is a cesspool of internally empty ego-centric men and character-lacking women. Society is in shambles as people struggle for the next most expensive object or the next hot restaurant.

Without a focus on positive moral values, Patrick’s society was an almost failed social experiment; this led to his final breakdown, as no matter where he turned, there was just no avenue to see something positive. Though people like Jean existed in the city, they were so few and had no power to make a positive influence leading to heightened vanity, cheap sex, and drugs.

Throughout ‘American Psycho,’ Patrick Bateman struggled with himself. He had no idea who he was or the meaning of his existence, and though Bateman tried using fashion, exercise, or wealth, he always struggled to define himself. Patrick’s struggle with identity came from the intense focus on outward appearances.

He and his colleagues were so obsessed with keeping up with societal standards of the elite status that they forgot how to be humans. Patrick admitted he was an empty shell, and his desire to fill himself with anything led to his serial killer rampage and mental breakdown.

Violence and the Truth

Violence is a central theme in ‘American Psycho.’ After trying and failing to define himself, Patrick turns to a terrible vice, killing. He becomes a murderer and takes the lives of Paul Owen, Christie, Bethany, Elizabeth, a homeless man, a child, and others. His lifestyle gets drenched in horror as he tortures, rapes, and does unspeakably vile things to other human beings.

However, after all the violence, Patrick becomes an unreliable narrator as his actions get disproven. When he meets his lawyer Harold Carnes, he learns that the confession in the answering machine is nothing but fiction; this leaves both him and the reader with doubts about whether he committed any murders.

Analysis of Key Moments in American Psycho

• Patrick and his co-worker, Timothy Price, partake in a dinner night with Evelyn, Pat’s finance, Courtney, Stash, and Vanden. Patrick suspects his fiance is having an affair with Timothy and learns that Stash tested positive for HIV.
• Patrick meets his colleagues At Harry’s, and McDermott narrates how he received a handjob from an unknown woman. The group then meets Paul Owen. Later, they meet at Pastels, and while there, Patrick reveals his new card to his group. He gets angry and sad when his card does not garner any admiration.
• Patrick arrives at his office in Pierce and Pierce. He meets his secretary Jean and tells her to dress more femininely. Patrick meets Tom Cruise in the elevator of his apartment complex. On getting to his room, he calls Patricia Worell and lies about having reservations at Dorsia. Patrick takes her to another restaurant, and they leave for his house. The next day he goes to the dry cleaners with blood-stained sheets.
• Patrick invites Paul Owen for drinks. He then attends a dinner date with Courtney and a couple and sleeps with Court after the dinner.
• Bateman meets Evelyn and refuses marriage.
• An office party gets held, and Patrick attends. However, he leaves early and kills a homeless man.
• Patrick attends a concert with Evelyn, Courtney, and her boyfriend, Luis. While on a lunch break with his co-workers, he tries strangulating Luis, but the encounter turns sexual as Luis kisses his wrist.
• On a dinner date with Courtney, Patrick leaves and takes two prostitutes to his house, Christie and Sabrina. He tortures them after sleeping with them.
• Patrick kills a Japanese delivery boy before attending Evelyn’s Christmas Party. He takes Evelyn to Club Chornobyl and gets high on drugs. Later he meets a girl, Daisy, and tells her he would love to torture her.
• Bateman goes out with Paul Owen and kills him with an ax. He also brutally murders Bethany, his ex-girlfriend.
• Patrick and Jean go on a date and share a kiss. Three months later, a detective, Mr. Donald Kimball, asks Patrick if he knew about Paul Owen’s disappearance, but he denies knowing anything. He later kills Christie and Elizabeth.
• Patrick murders a five-year-old boy at the zoo and two escort girls. He then tries to eat the intestines and organs of his victims. Patrick confesses his mental degradation to his friends, but none listens. He leaves and kills a cab driver, a man at a Korean Deli, and a night watchman. 
• Unsure of hope, Patrick leaves a message for his lawyer, Harold, confessing everything.
• Some months later, Patrick starts suspecting something wrong as no one talks about the people he murdered. On visiting Paul Owen’s apartment, he meets a woman, Mrs. Wolfe, who tells him to leave. 
• Patrick grows increasingly mentally degraded, drinking his urine. When he runs into Harold, he asks him about the confession, and to his surprise, Harold tells him he had dinner with Paul Owne in London ten days ago.

Style, Tone, and Figurative Language

Using the first-person perspective, ‘American Psycho’ draws a reader into its world gradually as it unfolds the complexities of Patrick Bateman’s character . Metaphors and similes paint a picture of Patrick’s thought process and the things that make him tick. The figurative language structure employed in the novel shows how intense the degradation of society is as they show violence, toxic masculinity, and profanity. 

The tone employed throughout the story varies. For the most part, it is subtle. However, when Patrick starts committing a terrible act, the tone flares to one of dread, anticipation, and twisted excitement.

Business Card

Patrick’s business card symbolizes the materialism and obsession of society. Patrick expected praise and adoration when he showed his friends his new card. However, he got distressed when he saw Scott Montgomery’s card. His dependence on materialistic objects showed how blind consumerism can lead to negative obsession.

Donald Trump

In ‘American Psycho,’ Patrick Bateman worshipped Donal Trump. He saw Trump as an idol and would constantly talk about his lifestyle, women, and fashion. He looked up to Trump as a goal he needed to achieve.

The Patty Winters Show

Throughout the novel, Patrick Bateman is obsessed over the Patty Winters Show. He fervently watched every episode and would note the absurd people that came on the air. His obsession with the weird people and provocative topics featured per episode showed his inner self; according to some sources, the show catalyzed his mental breakdown.

After Patrick took Paul Owen to his apartment, he brutally murdered him with an ax. Though he could have used any other method, Patrick hacked Paul to death. The ax represents the height of violence as it is only an insane person that will kill someone by dismembering them.

Can Patrick’s narrative be trusted?

Absolutely no. Patrick outed himself at the end of ‘ American Psycho.’ Though he killed so many people, it may all have been in his mind, as so many other things in his life.

Did Patrick like music?

Yes. As it was the 1980s, music was massively influencing pop culture, and Patrick listened to many musicians, including Huey Lewis, Whitney Houston, and Phil Collins. He critiqued their work in different chapters.

What happens in American Psycho’s ending?

After killing many people, Patrick calls his lawyer Harold Carnes and confesses his crimes during a police chase. However, he gets shocked when he learns that Paul Owen is alive; this forces Patrick to doubt the authenticity of his actions.

Is American Psycho satire?

Yes. It is a satirical work of fiction. It follows the life of Patrick Bateman, who becomes a serial killer. Though Bateman confesses to his crimes, he gets surprised to learn that the people he thought he murdered were not dead.

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American Psycho

Bret easton ellis, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

American Psycho: Introduction

American psycho: plot summary, american psycho: detailed summary & analysis, american psycho: themes, american psycho: quotes, american psycho: characters, american psycho: symbols, american psycho: theme wheel, brief biography of bret easton ellis.

Historical Context of American Psycho

Other books related to american psycho.

• Full Title: American Psycho
• When Written: the late 1980s and early 1990s
• Where Written: New York City
• When Published: 1991
• Literary Period: Contemporary American Fiction, Postmodernism, Satire
• Genre: Novel
• Setting: New York City, the late 1980s
• Climax: Bateman’s police chase and his confessional voicemails to his lawyer, Harold Carnes
• Point of View: First-Person

Extra Credit for American Psycho

Take Your Money and Go. American Psycho was originally slated to be published by Simon & Schuster. However in November of 1990, the company, citing “aesthetic differences,” dropped the book over its graphic and misogynistic content. Bret Easton Ellis got to keep the money anyway. Later that year, it was picked up and published by Vintage Books.

Is He or Isn’t He?. Bret Easton Ellis revealed in a 2016 interview with Rolling Stone that he’s never made a firm decision about whether or not Patrick Bateman is truly committing the heinous crimes he describes in the novel, saying, “That was what was so interesting to me about it. You can read the book either way.”

Psychological Disorders in “American Psycho” Movie Essay (Movie Review)

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Summary of the film, psychopathy, narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, accuracy of bateman’s disorder’s portrayal.

Films are good examples and portrayals of human behavior in different citations. Many movies show characters with a specific mental disorder and how this condition impacts the actions and perceptions of individuals. Although one should watch these portrayals with caution because they are not always representative of real-life psychological illnesses, films can serve as suitable study materials. American Psycho, directed by Harron, follows a life of a complex character, named Patrick Bateman. Bateman suffers from several disorders, including narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial disorder. In order to present potential diagnoses properly, criteria developed by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) should be used. This paper will briefly summarize the plot of American Psycho and analyze Patrick Bateman’s psychological disorders.

American Psycho is the director’s view of the modern culture of earning more and spending more and the dynamic work environment of the corporate organizations. The main character, who will be the basis of this paper’s analysis, is Patrick Bateman, who is a young and successful individual (Harron, 1999). Bateman has a steady job and a fiancé, but his behavior consistently points out a lack of connection with reality. From the beginning of this movie, Bateman is preoccupied with superficial things, such as his appearance, the fact that he only wears Versace suits, the business cards he has, dinner reservations, and other things (Harron, 1999). The plot shows Bateman’s day-to-day life, his meetings with colleagues, interactions with his fiancé, and other routines.

In this movie, Patrick Bateman is a young professional working a corporate job. For the public, he is a handsome and successful man. However, Bateman also has a secret life since he is also a serial killer (Harron, 1999). He manages to conduct the killings despite the fact that he has a mistress and a fiancé since some of his crimes happen at his apartment. This shows the nature of some psychological disorders and the fact that even the closest relatives and friends can be unaware of the individual’s condition.

Over the course of this movie, Bateman kills several people in different circumstances, including a homeless man at the beginning. The latter was murdered because Bateman became upset due to the fact that his colleague had a better business card (Harron, 1999). Moreover, the movie shows some unusual events, such as Bateman reading “feed me a stray cat” on the ATM (Harron, 1990). Bateman is shown to invite prostitutes into his apartment, as well as attempt to murder one of them with a chain saw. In the end, Bateman tries to confess his crimes to his colleagues and his layer, but these individuals dismiss his words by stating that one of the victims Bateman claims to kill, Paul Allen, is still alive.

In summary, this movie intends to show the dangerous nature of some disorders, which cause people to lose connection with reality. In the end, this film reveals that the killings and the character’s confession can be his hallucinations as nothing confirms the reality of these events. Despite this possibility, it is clear that Bateman is disconnected from reality and preoccupied with himself and superficial things he considers essential, which points to the potential diagnosis of a narcissistic disorder.

Patrick Bateman is a complex character, and his behavior points to several potential personality disorders. Although the movie title suggests that Bateman should be diagnosed with a psychopathic personality disorder, this character’s behavior is not always consistent with the characteristics of this illness. However, his behavior on a daily basis, priorities, and attitudes toward others allow diagnosing Patrick with a narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial disorder.

DSM-5 is the most recent publication of the manual that contains criteria that allow diagnosing a person with a psychological disorder. Typically one has to show symptoms of at least several factors described in DSM to be eligible (APA, 2013). The main criteria that define Bateman’s personality are the fact that his viewpoint does not reflect the objective reality. For example, he is driven by consumerism, overly concerned with the street name he lives on, and his killings are most likely a result of his imagination (Harron, 1999). Additionally, Bateman has no close relationships because he constantly lies and manipulates people, which are also traits that allow to diagnose him.

The name of this film, which is American Psycho, suggests that the main character has a psychotic disorder. Individuals with this diagnosis have an impaired perception of reality, which is evident with Bateman, who is unsure whether he committed murders in real life or not. Additionally, under DSM-5 criteria, psychopaths are fearless, their behavior is bold, and they feel invulnerable (APA, 2013). While this is true with Bateman, who kills a man on a street, shoots a woman, and chases one of the prostitutes down the staircase with a chainsaw, at the end of this film, the character’s behavior changes. Although he does not feel remorse for his actions, he confesses his crimes to several people, which is not typical for this diagnosis (Harron, 1999). Hence, it appears that either Bateman should not be diagnosed with a psychopathic personality disorder or that the movie’s portrayal of this disorder is inaccurate.

Notably, there are several misconceptions about psychopathy that this film supports. According to Martinez-Lopez et al. (2019), “psychopathy appears to be a complex, multifaceted condition marked by blends of personality traits reflecting differing levels of disinhibition, boldness, and meanness” (p. 4761). The main characteristic of psychopathic traits is a history of violent behavior. However, Martinez-Lopez et al. (2019) also suggest that many misconceptions about psychopaths have been dismissed in recent years, for instance, an assumption that they are born in a certain way, and their environment plays a small role in the development of pathological traits. Moreover, recent research has shown that psychopaths can be treated successfully with specific methods. Based on the complex nature of this condition and the fact that close observations and clinical experience are necessary to diagnose it accurately, one can conclude that Bateman should not be diagnosed with psychopathy.

In addition to psychopathy, the main character of this film demonstrated the traits of a narcissistic personality disorder. For example, one of the criteria under the DSM manual diagnostics is the increased interest in self. In the movie, Patrick has a conversation with two prostitutes, and he expresses the desire to discuss his work. When the two women sigh and show a lack of interest, he becomes annoyed, which suggests that he is interested in talking about himself. Next, the second criterion is a strong focus on personal aesthetics (APA, 2013). In the beginning, Patrick is shown to groom himself, looking in the mirror and stating that he could look better and be thinner (Harron, 1999). He is shown to put an icepack on his eyes to remove the puffiness and his morning routine appears to be excessive (Harron, 1999). Moreover, in the later scenes, Patrick compares his appearance to that of another college, who wears the same brand of expensive suits and glasses and has a similar haircut. These scenes hint at his strong interest in the way he looks and the way his appearance may be perceived by others.

People with a narcissistic disorder select their group of friends carefully, only choosing individuals who they perceive to have a similar social status to themselves. Moreover, these individuals desire admiration (APA, 2013). In Patrick’s case, his circle of friends consists primarily of Timothy, his fiancé, which are all elements of the character’s social status. Moreover, the scene after which Patrick kills a homeless man depicts others looking at the business card of Patrick’s coworker, which causes the former to feel extreme frustration. Hence, this scene points out the idea that Patrick requires admiration and feels annoyed when others do not pay attention to him. This also supports another DSM criteria, which is a feeling of envy towards others.

Apart from this, Patrick shows some common traits of a narcissist personality, such as a lack of emotions. He is unable to express them and understand the feelings of others. For example, when his friend Courtney comes to talk to him about her problems, she is extraordinarily agitated and looks worried. Instead of noticing this, Bateman compliments the woman on her looks by stating that she looks marvelous (Harron, 1999). This evident lack of compassion and emotional intelligence is what causes narcissists to behave arrogantly and dismissively towards others since they do not recognize or understand their feelings and cannot be empathic towards other people.

An initial assumption about the behavior of people with antisocial personality disorder would be that they altogether avoid any contact with other human beings. However, Bateman maintains communication with his colleagues, for example, Paul Allen, his job requires him to communicate with clients and other employees, and he has a fiancé (Harron, 1999). However, upon closer analysis, one can conclude that Bateman’s relationships are superficial. None of the other characters can be considered his friends, and he never has deep conversations with his colleagues or fiancé. Moreover, he never shares his actual feelings or frustrations with others, and for example, when he sees that someone has a better business card, he avoids admitting directly that this fact upsets him (Harron, 1999). Therefore, although Bateman does not avoid social life altogether, his lack of close relationships points to a potential diagnosis of an antisocial disorder.

Under the DSM-5 manual, there are ten characteristics that allow for identifying an antisocial personality disorder. Criteria 9 and 10 require the abnormal behavior to begin at the age of 15 and the person being at least 18 at the time of the diagnosis (APA, 2013). Harron (1999) never shows or mentions Bateman’s behavior during childhood, hence it is difficult to determine if his character traits are inherent to him or not. Another criterion is questionable since it implies breaking the laws repeatedly (APA, 2013). Although Bateman is shown to kill several people in different ways and hide their bodies over the course of the movie, it is not clear whether these are hallucinations or reality. Additionally, in this movie, Bateman never breaks other laws or policies.

Lies and manipulation are the other two criteria that make one eligible for the diagnosis. Some examples of Bateman lying include his relationship with his fiancé. Evelyn is a wealthy woman, and this appears to be the only factor that interests Patrick. He cheats on Evelyn, for example, with two prostitutes that he eventually murders (Harron, 1999). Other examples of this behavior include the scene at the beginning when Patrick is asked about stains on his sheets. When he is at the dry cleaners, he yells at the personnel and states that his sheets were stained by cranberry juice. Later he becomes frustrated because the cleaning did not remove the traces (Harron, 1999). It is probable that these stains are, in fact, traces of blood, and Patrick chose to hide this fact from the dry cleaning’ personnel.

Bateman can be easily irritated by minor things, and he is often portrayed as aggressive. Irritability and aggression are also criteria of DSM-5 for antisocial disorder (APA, 2013). The scenes of aggression are mainly the ones where Bateman murders people. However, he is also irritated on multiple occasions, for example, during the scene with business cards and when talking to the two prostitutes. This is linked to another factor, which is impulsivity, shown when Bateman calls Dorsia to get a reservation for a table. Instead of planning ahead for a reservation in advance, which is what people usually do, he chooses to disturb his acquaintance because he made an on-the-spot decision. This also suggests that he does not plan ahead and instead lives in the moment, and he does something the second he decides to do this.

Other traits of Bateman include his lack of responsibility, no regard for his safety or that of others, and having no remorse. For example, although he is a successful investment Banker, over the course of the movie, there is no scene where Patrick is actually working. Instead, even when he is at the workplace, he listens to music, makes reservations for lunch, or talks to his colleagues. Apart from this, he has a drug addiction and engages others in this dangerous behavior. This is shown when Bateman and Timothy take drugs in bathroom stalls (Harron, 1999). Finally, although Bateman has a long relationship with Evelyn, they are even engaged. He quickly breaks up with her and shows no remorse or desire to support his ex-partner. Hence, The analysis of Patrick Bateman’s behavior shows that the majority of his actions and character traits are consistent with the diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder.

The film American Psycho is an artistic work, which means that the nature of psychological disorders, the symptoms, and their portrayal may be different from what a therapist encounters during their professional practice. One factor complicating the analysis is the lack of definite answers in the movie, and mainly, it is unclear if Bateman’s killings are only his imagination. However, the grandiose behavior, preoccupancy with material things, and connections with wealthy and successful people match the description of the narcissistic behaviors.

Secondary characters in this movie also display narcissistic traits. Bateman behaves in a manner similar to that of others in his social circle. For example, at one business meeting, he is confused with another employee because they have the same hairstyle, glasses, and suits (Harron, 1999). Moreover, these characters are preoccupied with getting a reservation at a high-end restaurant. Their appearance and behavior suggest that most secondary characters in American Psycho are also accurate portrayals of narcissism.

Bateman’s behavior in the film is also consistent with the way a psychopath behaves in real life. According to the analysis by Permata (2020), under Hare’s theory of psychopath disorder, Bateman matches the criteria for high intelligence, superficial charm, lying and manipulations, having no remorse for one’s actions, impulsive behaviors, and antisocial behaviors. The intellect is shown through Bateman’s high-paying position, which requires good knowledge of finance and a degree in this field. His impulsivity is evident in each episode that presides over the killings. For example, when a lady on the streets confronts him about a stray cat Bateman tries to push into an ATM, the latter pulls out a gun. His antisocial behavior is evident from the lack of close friends, and even his fiancé and Bateman do not have a close and trustworthy relationship. However, as was mentioned in the discussion of cratered for the psychotic disorder diagnosis, at the end of the film, Bateman realizes that even though he confessed, no one around him cared (Harron, 1999). In contrast to this, psychopaths in real life do not have a sense of remorse and do not regret or care about the consequences of their actions.

The portrayal of the antisocial personality disorder in this film is good since it provides an understanding that event through a person has connections and contact with others, they may be eligible for this diagnosis. Bateman is a charming individual, and he is well-spoken and good-looking. These traits allow him to find contact with others and maintain good conversations. However, those are often superficial. For example, during a scene at his apartment, he describes an album by Hue Lewis, but he uses standard phrases he read from magazines critiquing this music. Hence, he does not have any real interest in the conversation topic but only uses his intelligence to make an excellent impression to manipulate others into something. This scene also points out the fact that Bateman never develops a real relationship with anyone, neither a friend nor his partner Evelyn. He always uses his charm and superficial things he has to impress people but never acts as real Patrick Bateman. Considering the DSM-5 creature discussed before, it appears that despite Bateman’s public persona, he, in fact, maybe diagnosed with an antisocial disorder. Moreover, this movie excellently portrays the traits of people with this condition since Bateman’s behavior is always consistent and proves his disregard for others in multiple scenes.

Overall, this paper examines the movie American Psycho and explains the diagnosis of the main character, Mr. Bateman. Despite the name of this film, the disorders that Bateman suffers from are consistent with narcissistic disorder and antisocial personality disorder. However, over the course of the film, Bateman murders several people, although it is unclear whether these killings happened in real life or were only his fantasies. Hence, there are some hints that support the diagnosis of a psychotic disorder as well. Therefore, this character is complex and demonstrates evidence of several psychological illnesses co-occurring. Considering that this is a movie, some aspects of mental health disorders are not portrayed accurately.

American Psychiatric Association (APA). (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). American Psychiatric Association.

Harron, M. (1999). American Psycho [Film]. Lions Gate Films.

Martínez-López, J., Medina-Mora, M. E., Robles-García, R., Madrigal, E., Juárez, F., Tovilla-Zarate, C. A., Reyes, C., Monroy, N., & Fresán, A. (2019). Psychopathic disorder subtypes based on temperament and character differences. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16 (23), 4761. Web.

Permata, A. D. (2019) Psychopathic disorder reflected in Patrick Bateman in Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho [Unpublished thesis]. Universitas Teknokrat Indonesia.

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American Psycho

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American Psycho is a 1991 novel by American author Bret Easton Ellis. Set in 1980s New York, the novel follows the life of a wealthy young stockbroker, the novel’s narrator, Patrick Bateman . Surrounded by a world of vapid commercialism and empty excess, Bateman begins acting on his psychopathic thoughts and impulses. His disturbance begins in his imagination. However, it quickly bleeds over into reality with Bateman committing more and more horrific murders, fueled by drug consumption. Bateman experiences a progression of mental illness. By the novel’s end, he has delusions that cash machines are talking to him. The novel was turned into a film starring Christian Bale in 2000. This guide uses the 1991 Picador edition.

Since the novel’s publication, many critics and scientists have noted its stigmatizing portrayal of mental illness. For example, the author employs sensationalist stereotypes that equate mental illness with violence, and the novel is never specific about Bateman’s psychiatric conditions, instead lumping together many unrelated symptoms under the eponymous, derogatory term “psycho.” The novel is, in this sense, more symbolic than realistic; it uses Bateman’s psychological state to represent what the author sees as society’s pathological tendencies.

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Be advised that the novel includes offensive language, including anti-gay slurs (which this study guide quotes but obscures). The novel also includes instances of rape, torture, and other graphic violence.

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American Psycho takes place during the 1980s. It is divided into 60 short chapters. At the novel’s start, the narrator and protagonist , New York stockbroker Patrick Bateman, attends a dinner party hosted by his fiancée, Evelyn . He suspects that she is cheating on him with a work colleague, Timothy Price. Bateman’s relationship with Evelyn is vacuous and defined by appearances. The next day Price and two other acquaintances go to a bar and an expensive restaurant, where they discuss fashion and women. They head to a club where they take cocaine. Bateman goes on a date with a woman who is not his fiancée and starts to have increasingly violent, compulsive thoughts.

In Chapters 9-20, Bateman’s violent thoughts increasingly spill over into real life. He returns some blood-spattered clothes to a drycleaner. This is clearly the result of a murder he has committed. He goes on to brutally assault a homeless man, stabbing him in the stomach and eyes. Bateman tells his colleagues and various women he sees, including Evelyn, about his psychopathic desires and fantasies, and even how he has murdered people. But none of them listen. On top of this, and influenced by his massive drug consumption, he starts to lose his grip on reality. He has blackouts and wakes up not knowing where he is. He also has out of body experiences, where time and the external world become transformed or distorted. In Chapters 21-28, Bateman tries to kill Luis, the boyfriend of a woman he is having an affair with, Courtney. However, Luis mistakes Bateman’s attempt to strangle him as a sexual come-on and reveals that he has desires for Bateman, to the latter’s horror. When Luis confesses his love for Bateman in a shop, Bateman threatens him with a knife. Meanwhile, Bateman’s acts of violence escalate. He kills a gay man and his dog, and assaults and abuses two sex workers. Bateman lures a drunk colleague, Paul Owen, back to his apartment. He then murders him with an ax, before disposing of the body with lime. Bateman breaks into Owen’s apartment to change the message on his answering machine and create the false impression that Owen is going to London.

In Chapters 29-40, the frequency and brutality of Bateman’s violence intensifies. He meets an ex-girlfriend from university, Bethany, for lunch and knocks her unconscious when she goes back to his apartment. He nails her hands to a wooden plank with a nail gun and kills her by sawing off her arm. He kills another woman by electrocuting her and murders a five-year-old child at the zoo by stabbing his neck. In addition, he murders two sex workers in his apartment using acid and a drill. These murders leave Bateman with an ever-increasing sense of despair and emptiness.

A private investigator, Donald Kimball, shows up at Bateman’s office. He asks Bateman questions regarding Paul Owen’s disappearance and suspects that something is awry. In Chapters 41-60, Bateman’s psychosis accelerates. He finally breaks up with Evelyn and sends her a box with flies in it for Valentine’s Day. He claims to have killed a woman using a rat and to have tried eating her body, as well as having concealed a machine gun in the locker at his gym. However, the veracity of many of these stories is called into doubt when a colleague at a party reveals that he had lunch with Paul Owen, the man Bateman supposedly murdered, in London 10 days ago. The extent of Bateman’s psychosis is evident at the novel’s end. This is when he admits that cash machines have been talking to him.

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Michael Byers

The Savage Ethics of “American Psycho”

What bret easton ellis’s novel teaches us about capitalism.

• By John Paul Rollert
• November 08, 2016
• CBR - Economics
• Share This Page

As trigger warnings go, it’s hard to imagine what more an author might do than title his book American Psycho . And yet the advance notice didn’t prevent the controversy surrounding Bret Easton Ellis’s infamous novel from blossoming into full-blown outrage when it was published in the spring of 1991. The previous fall, Simon & Schuster told the hotshot author he could keep his $300,000 advance for a book they absolutely refused to publish. By the time the novel finally arrived in bookstores after Vintage Books, a division of Random House, brazenly purchased the rights, bootleg copies of the manuscript had been floating around for months, filling the news with snippets of the sadistic behavior of the book’s protagonist (and said psycho), Patrick Bateman.

The publication of the novel did not initially prove sweet vindication for Ellis. As a literary offering, American Psycho found few defenders—most notably Norman Mailer, a man who had made a fine career courting controversy—but Roger Rosenblatt of the New York Times spoke for most critics when he called the book “the most loathsome offering of the season.” As a cultural referendum, the decision was even more decisive. The National Organization for Women threatened a boycott of Random House, at least one executive at Vintage Books received death threats, and Germany banned the work outright. Ellis himself became the most divisive figure in the literary world this side of Salman Rushdie.

Time has proven a better friend to the book. Twenty-five years after it was first published, American Psycho is now a canonical work of social satire, widely regarded by gender theorists and feminist critics alike as a scabrous assessment of modern masculinity run amok. It has sold over 1 million copies, been successfully adapted for the big screen and Broadway (as a musical, no less), and, in an achievement shared by only a handful of American authors, bequeathed a character of such salience that he has been thoroughly appropriated by popular culture. As Ellis told Rolling Stone in 2011, “I cannot tell you how many times young men have come up to me and showed me on their phones pictures of them dressed as Patrick Bateman for Halloween.” One wonders if the same may be said for Huck Finn and Captain Ahab.

American Psycho also remains, to my mind, the single most damning critique of the cultural consequences of contemporary capitalism. By drawing a parallel between the ritualistic displays of domination on Wall Street and the predations of an actual psychopath, Ellis not only shows how soft sadism shades into truly violent behavior, he suggests that the peculiar customs of the commercial elite can blind us to the difference.

Ellis didn’t set out to write a satirical cri de coeur . By 1987, the 23-year-old author had already published two novels about the carnal recreations of spoiled college students, and in search of a third storyline with something of an adult setting, he found himself drawn to the gold-plated phantasmagoria of the go-go 1980s financial sector. Initially, Ellis said in a recent interview, he envisioned “a much more earnest and straightforward novel, akin to what the movie Wall Street became with the Bud Fox character being seduced by Gordon Gekko.” His time among the legion of young bankers who arrived in lower Manhattan each fall changed this ambition. “[T]he longer I hung out with these guys that I was researching to write the book,” he said, “the more the aspect of the serial killer came into view. I don’t know why; I just suddenly thought, ‘Oh, my God. He’s going to be a serial killer.’”

He, of course, is Patrick Bateman, “Mr. Wall Street” as one character dubs him, though on the surface he doesn’t seem any different from the other bankers around him. In fact, throughout the novel it’s a running joke that all of the 20-something professionals so closely adhere to the same lifestyle aesthetic that they are constantly mistaken for one another. “[H]e looks nothing like the other men in the room,” Bateman sniffs early on in the book, noting an artist who has invaded a social gathering. “[H]is hair isn’t slicked back, no suspenders, no horn-rimmed glasses, the clothes black and ill-fitting, no urge to light and suck on a cigar, probably unable to secure a table at Camols, his net worth a pittance.”

What is striking about the young men of Ellis’s world is less that they are superficial, per se, than that they are strictly conformist in their superficiality.

The pathological obsessiveness of Bateman and his ilk with a gilded persona (and, given their affinity for tanning beds, a bronzed bottom) reaffirms Ellis’s stated aim of describing “a society in which the surface became the thing only.” And yet, the author goes above and beyond a satire of simple narcissism or even consumerism in the extreme by the straitjacketed quality of the young men’s commercial proclivities. They all favor the same high-end designer labels (“Price is wearing a six-button wool and silk suit by Ermenegildo Zegna, a cotton shirt with French cuffs by Ike Behar, a Ralph Lauren silk tie and leather wing tips by Fratelli Rossetti”); they all frequent the same carousel of culinary hot spots (Pastels, Thaidialano, Crayons, Bellini); and they all crave the newest high-tech toys (“You’ve got to have the Infinity IRS V speakers”). This in addition to the fact that they all attended the same schools, sleep with the same women, and share more or less the same profession.

If you watch a few minutes of footage from one of Andy Warhol’s Factory parties, you will be reminded that a superficial bent hardly requires a stunning lack of imagination. To that end, what is striking about the young men of Ellis’s world is less that they are superficial, per se, than that they are strictly conformist in their superficiality. A walking reference book for the finer points of tasteful excess, Bateman himself is constantly being canvassed about fashionable behavior, everything from the titivations of tieholders (“Choose a simple gold bar or a small clip and place it at the lower end of the tie at a downward forty-five-degree angle”) to the scruples of sparkling water (“But only buy naturally sparkling water” because “that means the carbon dioxide content is in the water at its source”).

In Class , Paul Fussell’s gimlet-eyed de gustibus published a few years before American Psycho , the curmudgeonly social critic said that such painstaking attention to the punctilios of appearance was a telltale sign of an excessive concern about “status slippage.” The “perfect shirt collar, the too neatly tied necktie knot, the anxious overattention to dry cleaning,” Fussell wrote, “all betray the wimp.” No doubt, among the bankers in Ellis’s book, there is certainly the talcum whiff of wimpiness. All of them are eternally worried that their failure to precisely observe some cultural practice will see them regarded with the same scornful glances they casually inflict on others, and insofar as their understanding of status is inseparable from a stale assessment of youthful beauty (“‘Was I really not that tan at Harvard?’ I ask mock-worriedly, but worriedly”), the young men surely make for a fey portrait of fragile masculinity.

And yet, “status slippage” alone doesn’t explain the incessant one-upmanship that spurs the consumerism of Patrick Bateman and his band of brothers (and sparks so much of the novel’s humor). A century ago, the German sociologist Max Weber contended that, whereas the engine of the Protestant ethic had once kept the wheels of capitalism turning (think God helps those who help themselves as the lynchpin of a complex social theory), that force had ebbed over the course of the 19th century. What replaced it? “In the field of [capitalism’s] highest development,” Weber wrote, “in the United States, the pursuit of wealth, stripped of its religious and ethical meaning, tends to become associated with purely mundane passions, which often actually give it the character of sport.”

The iconoclastic economist Thorstein Veblen had reached something of a similar conclusion not long before Weber. For him, however, rather than replacing a divine injunction, the sporting quality of contemporary capitalism had more to do with a vacuum left by a world that was no longer characterized by the barbaric practices of pillage and plunder. When those undertakings gave way to the hustle and bustle of business, he said, the predatory instinct was turned into pecuniary drive.

Veblen described this transformation in his foremost book, The Theory of the Leisure Class . “Gradually, as industrial activity further displaces predatory activity in the community’s everyday life,” he said, “accumulated property more and more replaces trophies of predatory exploit as the conventional exponent of prepotence and success.” For Veblen, even if the trophies themselves changed over time, in their social significance, they were no less essential to the quainter precincts of Palo Alto than they once had been in the fashionable farmsteads of a Viking village.

To demonstrate your superiority was the motivating force of modern capitalism, and the opportunities that provided for it might be sportive in nature or something more ominous.

Accordingly, throughout the book, Veblen conjures the constellation of contemporary practices, which, like a peacock’s plumage, signal unmistakably an individual’s financial fitness. Importantly for him, the semaphore of elite social standing was not merely a by-product of commercial accomplishment, it was the very aim of such striving. The claim to dominance in the modern world did not reside in having money, but in making that fact widely known by means of (Veblen’s most abiding expression) conspicuous consumption.

Nevertheless, such command was not established simply by the ability to consume, but to consume nicely. The wealthy man, Veblen notes, assisted by an education in refinement and the opportunity for leisure, “becomes a connoisseur,” exercising his purchasing potential with an exhaustive knowledge “in creditable viands of various degrees of merit, in manly beverages and trinkets, in seemly apparel and architecture, in weapons, games, dancers, and narcotics”—a list, like so many of those in Ellis’s book, that brings to mind the late French philosopher Henri Bergson’s quip that the only cure for vanity is laughter.

Less laughable, no doubt, is the green-eyed monster that inflames the acquisitive instinct even when it is placated by garish excess. Jealousy is the consequence of domination as well as the spur to its achievement. For Veblen most certainly, and for Weber in his own way, to demonstrate your superiority was the motivating force of modern capitalism, and the opportunities that provided for it might be sportive in nature or something more ominous.

Journalist Michael Lewis described the latter possibility in his memoir, Liar’s Poker , when he introduced his readers to the trading floor of Salomon Brothers, where he worked as a fresh-faced kid from Princeton in the mid-1980s. The “chosen home of the firm’s most ambitious people,” the trading floor was “governed” by a simple belief: “Eat or be eaten.” As such, it was a work environment with “no rules governing the pursuit of profit and glory,” one in which savage expressions, which always accompany even the most staid visions of social Darwinism, were wholeheartedly welcome. To be on the losing side of some transaction, Lewis soon learned, was to have your “face ripped off”; to get the better end of some deal, especially a big one, was to “blow up” a customer.

Released just two years before American Psycho , Liar’s Poker reads something like a sly sociological study to Ellis’s social satire, and it substantiates the psychological predicates of the latter’s character study: captive ambition (“I narrowly escaped imprisonment myself”), overwhelming cupidity (“I was largely unaware how heavily influenced I was by the money belief until it had vanished”), and crippling jealousy (“‘You don’t get rich in this business,’ said Alexander when I complained privately to him [about the size of my bonus]. ‘You only attain new levels of relative poverty’”). In the voice of Patrick Bateman, Ellis’s diagnosis is far more succinct: “There wasn’t a clear, identifiable emotion within me, except for greed and, possibly, disgust.”

Applied to any actual person, such a judgment would be highly simplistic, but Ellis is a novelist, and he freely typifies in service of his creative aims. In their gourmandizing, determined drug use, sartorial self-indulgence, addiction to high-tech knickknacks and “for-men” frippery, and in all their libidinal excess, to say nothing of their scorn for penury and perceived weaknesses (a favorite game involves dangling a dollar bill before a homeless person before gleefully snatching it back), the satellite characters of Ellis’s novel seem merely the mundane fulfillment of Weber’s prophecy, that modern capitalism would nurture a generation of “sensualists without heart.”

Patrick Bateman, of course, is a breed apart from his fellow bankers, but (and this is the novel’s most haunting suggestion) only by evolutionary degrees. When the mayhem begins, it is presented as nothing more than another instance of sybaritic excess. “I feel heady, ravenous, pumped up,” Bateman says after slicing up a homeless man. “As if I’d just worked out and endorphins are flooding my nervous system, or just embraced that first line of cocaine, inhaled the first puff of a fine cigar, sipped that first glass of Cristal.” Ultimately, the act of murder is merely an exercise in the most self-indulgent display of all, savage dominance, and if it steadily becomes more elaborate and ornate (which it notoriously does), that is because, like ambition, the thrill lies not in the act itself but in the knowledge that it doesn’t suffer by comparison.

It needn’t be said that physical violence occupies a separate moral plane from the mischief of Liar’s Poker . Having your “face ripped off” and having your face ripped off are certainly not identical. Still, the celebration of unabashed sadism in service of superiority and personal success, a spirit that contemporary capitalism seems to tolerate and even abet, is what unites the two books, and one might be forgiven for wondering the degree to which it has contaminated the broader culture. In The Big Short , Lewis says that, while he had always viewed Liar’s Poker as a cautionary tale, not long after it was published he began receiving fan mail from college boys who had read the book as “a how-to manual,” and between them and the aforementioned Halloween revelers, one suspects more than a little overlap.

If the first wave of readers missed the moral conundrums of American Psycho , it may be because, like Lewis’s pen pals, they mistook a catalogue of outrage, excruciating in detail and description, for an endorsement of carnal extravagance. If so, it is a tribute to the salacious subtlety of Ellis’s novel, which, like Liar’s Poker or, for that matter The Great Gatsby , blinds more than a few readers by its meretricious glint.

Such subtlety, substantial not stylistic, is a hallmark of exceptional imaginative literature, which so often contributes to ethics by making everyday discernments seem slightly more ambiguous. The enduring significance of American Psycho is not that it demonstrates the obvious, namely that between the casual cruelty of the Salomon trading floor and the extravagant barbarity of Patrick Bateman there is a point at which the sadism stops being funny. (This should be clear, and clearly felt, to anyone who is not an actual psycho.) The achievement is simpler and more straightforward, and ultimately sharp as a stiletto. To ask, as a matter of moral reckoning: Between the two, what’s the difference?

John Paul Rollert is an adjunct assistant professor of behavioral science at Chicago Booth.

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Psychological Disorders in American Psycho

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Narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, dissociative identity disorder.

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American Psycho

• A wealthy New York City investment banking executive, Patrick Bateman, hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he delves deeper into his violent, hedonistic fantasies.
• It's the late 1980s. Twenty-seven year old Wall Streeter Patrick Bateman travels among a closed network of the proverbial beautiful people, that closed network in only they able to allow others like themselves in in a feeling of superiority. Patrick has a routinized morning regimen to maintain his appearance of attractiveness and fitness. He, like those in his network, are vain, narcissistic, egomaniacal and competitive, always having to one up everyone else in that presentation of oneself, but he, unlike the others, realizes that, for himself, all of these are masks to hide what is truly underneath, someone/something inhuman in nature. In other words, he is comprised of a shell resembling a human that contains only greed and disgust, greed in wanting what others may have, and disgust for those who do not meet his expectations and for himself in not being the first or the best. That disgust ends up manifesting itself in wanting to rid the world of those people, he not seeing them as people but only of those characteristics he wants to rid. — Huggo
• Patrick Bateman is handsome, well educated and intelligent. He is twenty-seven and living his own American dream. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. At night he descends into madness, as he experiments with fear and violence. — Lion Films
• A white background. Red drops begin to fall past the opening credits. The drops become a red sauce on a plate. A slab of meat is cut with a knife and garnished with raspberries, then placed on a table. The camera moves over various dishes, most of which are very small and look very expensive. The restaurant is furnished in pinks and greens, and everyone is well-dressed. Waiters tell customers ridiculously decadent specials like squid ravioli and swordfish meatloaf. The setting is New York City, sometime in the 1980s. The vice-presidents of Pierce and Pierce, a Wall Street financial institution, are seated around a table. They include Timothy Bryce (Justin Theroux), Craig McDermott (Josh Lucas), David Van Paten (Bill Sage) and Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale). Bryce says "This is a chick's restaurant. Why aren't we at Dorsia?" McDermott replies "Because Bateman won't give the maitre d' head." Bateman flicks a toothpick at him. They discuss various people in the restaurant, including who Bateman believes to be Paul Allen across the room. Van Paten returns from the bathroom and says that there's no good place to do coke in. They discuss the fact that Allen is handling the Fisher account, which leads McDermott to make racist remarks about Allen being Jewish. "Jesus, McDermott, what does that have to do with anything?" says Patrick. "I've seen that bastard sitting in his office spinning a fucking menorah." Bateman rebukes him. "Not a menorah. A dreidel, you spin a dreidel." McDermott replies "Do you want me to fry you up some potato pancakes? Some latkes?" "No, just cool it with the anti-Semitic remarks." "Oh I forgot. Bateman's dating someone from the ACLU!" Bryce calls Bateman the voice of reason. Looking at the check he remarks "Speaking of reasonable, only $570." They all drop their Platinum American Express cards on top of the bill. At a nightclub, Bryce takes some money out of a clip and gives it to a man in drag, who lets them inside. As some 80's pop music plays from overhead, the men dance while strobe lights flash and some women on stage wave around prop guns like something out of a grind house flick. Bateman orders a drink and hands the bartender a drink ticket, but she tells him drink tickets are no good and that he has to pay in cash. He pays, and then when she's out of earshot, he says "You're a fucking ugly bitch. I want to stab you to death, then play around with your blood." He takes his drink with a smile. The camera pans through Bateman's apartment the next morning. Everything is shades of white, with black counters and shelves. It is sparsely decorated, but looks expensive. "I live in the American Gardens building on West 81st street, on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I'm 27 years old." He describes his diet and exercise routine, and his meticulous daily grooming rituals, which involves no less than 9 different lotions and cleansers. "There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman," he says while peeling off his herb-mint facial mask. "Some kind of abstraction. But there is no 'real me'. Only an entity. Something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable, I simply am not there." Sweeping over the skyline of downtown New York, the song Walking on Sunshine starts playing. Walking down the hallway to his office, Bateman listens to this song on his headphones with absolutely no expression on his face. Someone passes by him and says "Hey Hamilton. Nice tan." Everyone in the hallway has expensive suits and slicked-back hair. He walks by his secretary, Jean (Chloe Sevigny), to his office door. She's dressed in a long coat and shirt that are too big for her. "Aerobics class, sorry. Any messages?" She follows him into his corner office. She tells him someone cancelled, but she doesn't know what he cancelled or why. "I occasionally box with him at the Harvard Club." She tells him someone named Spencer wants to meet for drinks. He tells her to cancel it. "What should I say?" "Just say no." He tells her to make reservations for him at a restaurant for lunch, as well as dinner reservations at Arcadia on Thursday. "Something romantic?" "No, silly. Forget it. I'll make them. Just get me a mineral water." She tells him he looks nice. Without looking at her, he tells her not to wear that outfit. "Wear a dress or a skirt. You're prettier than that." The phone starts ringing, and he tells her to tell anyone who calls that he isn't there. "And high heels." She leaves. He puts his feet up and starts watching Jeopardy on his office TV. A taxicab makes its way through Chinatown. Inside, Bateman is trying to listen to the new Robert Palmer album on his headphones, but his "supposed" fiancée Evelyn (Reese Witherspoon) keeps distracting him with ideas for their wedding. He says he can't take the time off work to get married. "Your father practically owns the company. You can do anything you like, silly. You hate that job anyway, I don't see why you don't just quit." "Because... I want... to fit... IN." The cab drives up to a restaurant called Espace. "I'm on the verge of tears as we arrive, since I'm positive we won't have a decent table. But we do, and relief washes over me, in an awesome wave." Bryce it already seated next to two punk-rock teens smoking cigarettes. "This is my cousin Vanden and her boyfriend Stash," says Evelyn. Bryce kisses Evelyn on both cheeks, and then starts kissing her neck, slightly crossing the line. Bateman looks at his blurry reflection in a metal menu. As they eat sushi, he remarks "I'm fairly certain that Timothy Bryce and Evelyn are having an affair. Timothy is the only interesting person I know." Bateman doesn't care because he's also having an affair with Courtney Rawlinson, her best friend. "She's usually operating on one or more psychiatric drugs, tonight I believe it's Xanax." She's also engaged to Luis Carruthers, "the biggest doofus in the business." Courtney and Luis are seated beside him, and Courtney, slurring her words, asks Stash whether he thinks Soho is becoming too commercial. "Yes. I read that," says Luis. "Oh who gives a rat's ass," says Bryce. "That affects us," says Vanden. "What about the massacres in Sri Lanka, honey? Don't you know that the Sikhs are killing like, tons of Israelis over there?" Bateman tells him there are more important problems to worry about than Sri Lanka. He tells them they include Apartheid, nuclear arms, terrorism, and world hunger. "We have to provide food and shelter for the homeless, and oppose racial discrimination and promote civil rights, while also promoting equal right for women. We have to encourage a return to traditional moral values. Most importantly, we have to promote general social concern, and less materialism in young people." Bryce almost chokes on his drink as he starts laughing. "Patrick, how thought-provoking," Luis says, feigning tears. Patrick takes a swig of his whiskey. It's nighttime. Patrick takes some money out of an ATM. A woman walks by and he starts following her. They stop at a crosswalk and he says "hello". She hesitantly says hello back. The sign changes to walk and they cross the street. The next day, Bateman argues with an old Chinese woman who runs a dry cleaners. Another Chinese man is looking at some bed sheets with a huge red stain on them. Bateman is trying to tell her that you can't bleach that type of sheet, and that they are very expensive. She continues to babble in a language he can't understand. "Lady, if you don't shut your fucking mouth, I will kill you." She is shocked, but still won't speak English. "I can't understand you! You're a fool! Stupid bitch-ee!" A woman comes in the door and recognizes him. Her name is Victoria. He says hi to her. "It's so silly to come all the way up here," she says, "but they really are the best." "Then why can't they get these stains out?" he says, showing her the sheets. "Can you get through to them? I'm getting nowhere." "What are those?" she says, looking wide-eyed at the stains. "Uh, well it's cranberry juice. Cran-apple." She looks skeptical. He tells her he has a lunch date in 15 minutes, and she tries to make plans with him. He tells her he's booked solid. "What about Saturday?" "Next Saturday? Can't. Matinee of Les Mis." He promises to call her, and then leaves. Patrick paces his apartment in his underwear, on the phone with Courtney Rawlinson (Samantha Mathis). A porno movie is playing on his TV. "You're dating Luis, he's in Arizona. You're fucking me and we haven't made plans. What could you possibly be up to tonight?" She says she's waiting for Luis to call. "Pumpkin you're dating an asshole. Pumpkin you're dating the biggest dickweed in New York. Pumpkin you're dating a tumbling, tumbling dickweed." She tells him to stop calling her pumpkin. He insists that they have dinner, and when she says no, he says he can get them a table at Dorsia. This perks her interest. He tells her to wear something nice. He calls the restaurant, and asks if he can make a reservation for two at 8:00 or 8:30. There is a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, then the man on the other end starts laughing uncontrollably. Patrick hangs up. In a limo, Patrick listens to Courtney describe her day, while she is almost passing out from her medication. "Is that Donald Trump's car?" he asks, looking out the window. Patrick's face is blurred through the plastic divider of the limo. She tells him to shut up. He tells her to take some more lithium, or coke or caffeine to get her out of her slump. "I just want a child," she says, absently looking out the window. "Just two... perfect... children." At the restaurant, she nearly falls asleep at the table and Patrick touches her shoulder and wakes her up. "Are we here?" she asks sleepily. "Yeah," he says, sitting down. "This is Dorsia?" "Yes dear," he says, opening the menu which clearly says Barcadia across it. He tells her she's going to have the peanut butter soup with smoked duck and mashed squash. "New York Matinee called it a 'playful but mysterious little dish. You'll love it." He orders her the red snapper with violets and pine nuts to follow. She thanks him, and then passes out in her chair. A conference table at P&P the next day. Luis thanks Patrick for looking after Courtney. "Dorsia, how impressive. How on Earth did you get a reservation there?" "Lucky I guess," replies Patrick. Luis compliments him on his suit. "Valentino Couture?" "Uh-huh." Luis tries to touch it, but Patrick slaps his hand away. "Your compliment was sufficient Luis." Paul Allen comes up to them. "Hello Halberstram. Nice tie. How the hell are ya?" Narrating, Patrick explains that Allen has mistaken him for "this dickhead Marcus Halberstram." They both work at P&P and do the same exact work, and wear the same glasses and suits. "Marcus and I even go to the same barber. Although I have a slightly better haircut." Allen and Patrick discuss accounts. He asks him about Cecilia, Marcus' girlfriend. "She's great, I'm very lucky," replies Patrick. Bryce and McDermott come in, congratulating Allen on the Fisher account. "Thank you, Baxter." Bryce asks him if he wants to play squash. Allen gives him his card out of his case. An audible tremor goes through the room. "Call me." "How about Friday?" says Bryce. "No can do. I got an 8:30 rez at Dorsia. Great sea urchin seviche." He leaves. Bryce wonders how he managed to swing that. McDermott thinks he's lying. Bateman takes out his new business card, which reads "Patrick BATEMAN - Vice President". "What do you think?" "Very nice," says McDermott. "I picked them up from the printers yesterday." "Nice coloring," says Bryce. "That's 'bone'. And the lettering is something called 'silian rail'." "Cool Bateman. But that's nothing," says Van Paten, laying his card down next to Patrick's. "That is really nice," says Bryce. "Eggshell with romalian type. What do you think?" Van Paten asks Patrick. "Nice," Patrick says, visibly jealous. "How did a nitwit like you get so tasteful?" says Bryce. Biting his nails, Patrick can't believe Bryce prefers Van Paten's card. "You ain't seen nothing yet," says Bryce, taking out his own card. "Raised lettering, pale nimbus, white." Another tremor goes through the room. Holding back his rage, Bateman tells him it's very nice. "Let's see Paul Allen's card." Bryce takes it out of his pocket and hands it to Bateman. It shines with an ethereal glow in the dim light of the conference room, even though it is basically identical to the rest of their cards. Narrating, Patrick says "Look at the subtle off-white coloring. The tasteful thickness of it. Oh my God. It even has a watermark!" He drops the card on the table. "Something wrong?" asks Luis. "Patrick? You're sweating." Nighttime. Patrick walks by a courthouse on his way home. Steam rises from underground vents. He walks through an alley, a black shadow under a pale streetlight. He stops and looks behind him, to see a homeless man by some piles of trash. "Hello. Pat Bateman. Do you want some money? Some food?" He starts taking out some money. "I'm hungry," says the bum. "It's cold out too isn't it? If you're so hungry, why don't you get a job?" The bum says he lost his job. "Why? Were you drinking? Insider trading? Just joking." He asks him his name, and the bum says his name is Al. "Get a god-damn job, Al! You have a negative attitude. That's what's stopping you." He promises to help him get his act together. Al tells him he's a kind man. He puts his hand on Patrick's arm, and Patrick pulls it off, visibly disgusted. "You know how bad you smell? You reek of shit. You know that?" He laughs, and then apologizes. "I don't have anything in common with you." He bends down and opens his briefcase. "Oh thank you mister, thank you. It's cold out here..." "You know what a fucking loser you are?" Patrick suddenly takes a knife out of the briefcase and stabs the bum three times in the stomach, than pushes the shocked man to the ground. The dog barks at Patrick, so he stomps it with his foot, hard enough to kill it. He picks up his briefcase and walks away down the alley. A health spa. A young Asian woman rubs some lotion on Patrick's face. She compliments him on his smooth skin. Later, another Asian woman gives him a manicure. "I have all the characteristics of a human being. Flesh. Blood. Skin. Hair. But not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed, and disgust. Something horrible is happening inside me, and I don't know why." He is lying in a tanning bed now. "My nightly bloodlust has overflowed into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip." A Christmas party. A short man in an elf costume hands out glasses of champagne. 'Deck The Halls' is playing in the background. Patrick takes one, scowling at the bizarre costumes. Someone comes up to him and calls him by the wrong name. "Hey Hamilton. Have a holly-jolly Christmas," says Patrick. "Is Allen still handling the Fisher account?" He points to Paul Allen across the room. "Of course. Who else?" Evelyn comes up to them. "Mistletoe alert! Merry X-mas Patrick. You're late honey." "I've been here the entire time, you just didn't see me." A man behind him puts cloth antlers on Patrick's head without him noticing. "Say hello to Snowball. Snowball says 'hello Patrick'", she says in a childish voice. "What is it?" Patrick looks with disgust at the creature in her arms. "It's a little baby piggy-wiggy, isn't it? It's a Vietnamese potbellied pig. They make darling pets. Don't you? Don't you?" Patrick looks ready to vomit as she pets the animal. "Stop scowling Patrick. You're such a Grinch. What does Mr. Grinch want for Christmas? And don't say breast implants again." Ignoring her, he goes to mingle with the rest of the party. 'Joy to the World' is playing. He says hi to Paul Allen. "Hey Marcus. Merry Christmas, how've you been. Workaholic I suppose?" He calls to Hamilton that they are going to Nell's bar, and that the limo is out front. Patrick says that they should have dinner. Paul suggests that he bring Cecilia. "Cecilia would adore it." "Then let's do it, Marcus." Evelyn comes up to them. Paul compliments her on the party, and then walks away. "Why is he calling you Marcus?" asks Evelyn. Ignoring this, Patrick says "Mistletoe alert!", and kisses her while waving a leafy branch. A restaurant. Most of the tables are empty. Patrick takes his reservation under the name Marcus Halberstram. He is led to a table where Paul is already seated, and he is arguing with a waiter. "I ordered the cilantro crawfish gumbo, which is of course the only excuse one could have for being at this restaurant, which is, by the way, almost completely empty." Patrick ignores this and orders a J&B straight and a Corona. The waiter, who looks slightly effeminate and has a red bandana around his neck, starts to list the specials, but Paul cuts him off and orders a double Absolut martini. "Yes sir. Would you like to hear the specials?" "Not if you want to keep your spleen," says Patrick. The waiter leaves. "This is a real beehive of activity Halberstram. This place is hot, very hot," Paul comments sarcastically. "The mud soup and charcoal arugula are outrageous here," replies Patrick. Paul derides him for being late. "I'm a child of divorce, give me a break. I see they've omitted the pork loin with lime Jell-o." Paul says he could have gotten them a table at Dorsia instead. "Nobody goes there anymore. Is that Ivana Trump?" Patrick says, looking behind him. "Oh geez Patrick. I mean Marcus. What are you thinking? Why would Ivana be at Texarkana?" He asks how Paul ended up getting the Fisher account. "Well I could tell you that Halberstram... but then I'd have to kill ya!" He laughs. Patrick simply stares at him with a vicious smile. They pick at their meals. Patrick says "I like to dissect girls. Did you know I'm utterly insane?" Paul doesn't seem to hear him. He compliments him on his tan. When Patrick says he goes to a salon, Paul says he has a tanning bed at home. "You should look into it." Patrick can barely suppress his rage. Paul asks about Cecilia. "I think she's having dinner with Evelyn Williams." "Evelyn! Great ass. She goes out with that loser Patrick Bateman, what a dork!" Patrick chuckles with inner contempt. "Another martini Paul?" Patrick's apartment. Paul lounges drunk on a chair with a bottle of liquor on the floor beside him. Newspapers are taped to the floor of the living room. Patrick picks up a CD. "Do you like Huey Lewis and the News?" "They're OK," says Paul. Patrick continues "Their early work was a little too new wave for my tastes, but when 'Sports' came out in '83, I think they really came into their own. Commercially and artistically." He goes to the bathroom and puts on a raincoat. "The whole album has a clear crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism, that really gives the songs a big boost!" He takes a valium, washes it down, looks at himself in the mirror, and walks back into the living room. On his way back he grabs an axe. Moonwalking backwards, he says that Huey has been compared to Elvis Costello, but that Huey has a more cynical sense of humor. He puts the axe down and starts buttoning up the raincoat behind Paul. "Hey Halberstram," says Paul. "Why are there copies of the Style section all over the floor? Do you have a dog? A little chow or something?" He laughs. "No Allen." "Is that a raincoat?" "Yes it is!" He goes over to the CD player and presses a button. The song 'Hip to Be Square' starts playing. "In '87, Huey released this, Fore, their most accomplished album. I think their undisputed masterpiece is 'Hip to Be Square'." He dances over to the kitchen where he left the axe. "The song is so catchy, most people probably don't listen to the lyrics, but they should, because it's not just about the pleasures of conformity and the importance of trends, it's also a personal statement about the band itself! Hey Paul!" Paul looks around too late to see Patrick charge at him with the axe. Screaming, he swings it into Paul's head splattering blood all over his own face. Paul falls to the floor, pouring blood all over the newspapers. Patrick yells "Try getting a reservation at Dorsia now you fucking stupid bastard!" He swings it down again, and again, screaming, decapitating him. "You... fucking... bastard!" He finally drops the axe and begins composing himself. He takes off the raincoat. He fixes his hair and lights up a cigar. 'Hip to Be Square' continues to play from the stereo. Patrick drags the body through the lobby of his building in a black bag. A trail of blood pours from the bottom of the bag. The doorman looks up at him, and then goes back to writing something. Patrick hails a cab outside, and starts stuffing the bag into the trunk. A voice says his name from the sidewalk. It's Luis. "Patrick. Is that you?" "No Luis. It's not me. You're mistaken." He introduces Patrick to an attractive Asian woman. "We're going to Nell's. Gwendolyn's father is buying it. Ooh. Where did you get that overnight bag?" He eyes the bag with the corpse inside it. "Jean-Paul Gaultier." Patrick slams the trunk and heads off. Later, he arrives at Paul's apartment. "I almost panic when I realize that Paul's place overlooks the park, and is obviously more expensive than mine." He finds his suitcases and starts to pack. "It's time for Paul to take a little trip." He throws some clothes in a suitcase, and then goes to the answering machine. In his best imitation of Paul's voice, he records "It's Paul. I've been called away to London for a few days. Meredith, I'll call you when I get back. Hasta la vista, baby." He takes the suitcase and leaves. In his office the next day, Patrick listens to the song 'The Lady in Red' by Chris De Burgh on his headphones. Jean comes in and tells him that there's someone named Donald Kimball there to see him. "Who?" "Detective Donald Kimball." He looks through the office window. "Tell him I'm at lunch." "Patrick, it's only 10:30. I think he knows you're here." "Send him in, I guess," he says resignedly. Jean goes to get him. Patrick picks up the phone and starts having a pretend conversation with someone, giving him advice on clothes and salons. "Always tip the stylist fifteen percent. Listen John I've gotta go. T. Boone Pickens just walked in. Heh, just joking. No, don't tip the owner of the salon. Right. Got it." He hangs up and apologizes to Kimball. "No I'm sorry, I should have made an appointment. Was that anything important?" Patrick gives a vague synopsis of the call. "Mulling over business problems, examining opportunities, exchanging rumors, spreading gossip." They introduce themselves to each other and shake hands. Kimball apologizes again for barging in. Patrick stuffs some magazines and his walkman into a desk drawer. "So, what's the topic of discussion?" Kimball explains that Meredith hired him to investigate the disappearance of Paul Allen. "I just have some basic questions." Patrick offers him coffee, which he turns down. He offers him a bottle of water, which he also turns down. Bateman presses the intercom button anyways and tells Jean to bring some water. "It's no problem." He asks what the topic of discussion is again, and Kimball repeats he's investigating the disappearance of Paul Allen. Jean comes in with a bottle, and Patrick quickly puts a coaster down before she can put it on the desk. He tells Kimball he hasn't heard anything. "I think his family wants this kept quiet." "Understandable. Lime?" offers Bateman. Kimball insists he's ok. He asks Patrick his age, where he went to school, and his address, the American Gardens building, which Kimball says is very nice. "Thanks," Patrick says smugly. Kimball asks what he knew about Paul Allen. "I'm at a loss. He was part of that whole Yale thing." Kimball asks him what he means. "Well I think for one that he was probably a closet homosexual who did a lot of cocaine. That Yale thing." Kimball asks what kind of person Paul was. "I hope I'm not being cross-examined here." "You feel like that?" "No. Not really." Kimball asks where Paul hung out. Patrick names some places including a yacht club. "He had a yacht?" "No, he just hung out there." "And where did he go to school?" "Don't you know this?" "I just wanted to know if you know." Patrick tells him St. Paul's, then says he just wants to help. "I understand." Patrick asks if he has any witnesses or fingerprints. Kimball tells him about the message on the answering machine, and that Meredith doesn't think he went to London. "Has anyone seen him in London?" "Actually, yes. But I'm having a hard time getting actual verification." He tells him that someone thought they saw Paul there but mistook someone else for him. Patrick asks whether the apartment had been burglarized. Kimball tells him about the missing luggage. Patrick asks whether the police had become involved yet, but Kimball says no. "Basically, no-one's seen or heard anything. It's just strange. One day someone's walking around, going to work, alive, and then..." "Nothing." "People just disappear," says Kimball with a sigh. Bateman says "The earth just... opens up and swallows them." "Eerie. Really eerie." Bateman excuses himself by telling Kimball he has a lunch appointment with Cliff Huxtable at the Four Seasons in 20 minutes. "The Four Seasons? Isn't that a little far up town? I mean, aren't you going to be late?" "No, there's one down here." Patrick promises to call him if he hears anything, and shows him the door. Patrick does stomach crunches while watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and then does some jump-rope. Nighttime. A seedy part of town. A blonde woman in a blue coat, a hooker, stands in front of a warehouse on a street corner. She has a face that says she's been hooker for too long. A limousine drives up. Patrick rolls the window down as the car stops in front of her. "I haven't seen you around here," he tells her. "Well you just haven't been looking." "Would you like to see my apartment?" She is reluctant. He holds out some money and asks again. "I'm not supposed to, but I can make an exception," she says, taking the money. "Do you take a credit card? Just joking." He opens the door and invites her in. The car drives away. Patrick makes a phone call on a large cordless phone. "I'd like a girl, early 20's, blonde, who does couples. And I really can't stress blonde enough. Blonde." He hangs up. He tells her his name is Paul Allen, and that he's going to call her Christie. "You'll respond only to Christie, is that clear?" She nods. Patrick's apartment. Patrick pours some mineral water into a bathtub, where Christie is bathing and drinking champagne. "That's a very fine chardonnay you're drinking." The song 'If You Don't Know Me by Now' is playing in the background. Patrick is dressed in a suit and bow tie. "I want you to clean your vagina," he tells her. She puts down the champagne and picks up a bath sponge. "From behind. Get on your knees." He tells her she has a nice body, playfully splashing her with water. The phone rings. It's the second girl in the lobby downstairs. He tells the doorman to send her up. He tells Christie to dry off and choose a robe, then come to the living room. He opens the door for the second girl, and takes her coat. "I'm Paul. Not quite blonde, are you? More like dirty blonde. I'm going to call you Sabrina. I'm Paul Allen." He asks both girls if they want to know what he does for a living. They both say no, lewdly. "Well, I work on Wall Street. At Pierce and Pierce. Have you heard of it?" Sabrina shakes her head, and Patrick clenches his jaw. "You have a really nice place here Paul," says Christie. "How much did you pay for it?" "Well actually Christie, that's none of your business. But I can assure you, it certainly wasn't cheap." Sabrina starts to take out a cigarette. "No! No smoking in here." He offers them chocolate truffles. "I don't want to get you drunk, but uh, that's a very fine chardonnay you're not drinking." He goes over to the stereo and puts on a Phil Collins CD. "I've been a big Genesis fan ever since the release of their 1980 album, 'Duke'. Before that, I really didn't understand any of their work. It was too artsy. Too intellectual. It was on Duke where Phil Collin's presence became more apparent." He goes and stands in the doorway of the bedroom, invitingly. "I think Invisible Touch is the group's undisputed masterpiece." The girls follow him into the bedroom. "It's an epic meditation on intangibility. At the same time it deepens and enriches the meaning of the preceding three albums." He tells Christie to take off the robe, which she does. "Listen to the brilliant ensemble playing of Banks, Collins and Rutherford. You can practically hear every nuance of each instrument," he says, setting up a video camera on a tripod. He tells Sabrina to remove her dress. "In terms of lyrical craftsmanship, and sheer songwriting, this album hits a new peak of professionalism. Sabrina, why don't you dance a little? Take the lyrics to 'Land of Confusion'. In this song, Phil Collins addresses the abuse of political authority. 'In Too Deep' is the most moving pop song of the 1980s," he continues, wrapping a scarf around Christie's neck while Sabrina dances in her lingerie. "About monogamy and commitment. The song is extremely uplifting. Their lyrics are as positive and affirmative as anything I've heard in rock." He turns the camera on and points it towards the bed. "Christie, get down on your knees so Sabrina can see your asshole. Phil Collin's solo career seems to be more commercial, and therefore more satisfying in a narrower way. Especially songs like 'In the Air Tonight' and 'Against All Odds'. Sabrina, don't just stare at it, eat it. But I also think Phil Collins works better within the confines of the group than as a solo artist. And I stress the word 'artist'." He goes to the stereo and switches CDs. "This is 'Sussudio', a great, great song. A personal favorite." He walks back to the bedroom, unbuttoning his shirt. He has sex with both women at once. He flexes his muscles and admires himself in the mirror while doing them doggy-style. He makes them look into the camera. They do oral sex, then missionary. Patrick flexes his muscles in the mirror again. Christie rolls her eyes. They do more doggy-style. Patrick sleeps with a woman on either side of him. He awakens some time later. Christie's arm touches his. "Don't touch the watch." He gets up and goes over to the dresser. The women get up and start to dress. He opens a drawer to reveal a collection of scissors, carving tools and other sharp objects. He takes out a coat hanger. "Can we go now?" asks Christie. "We're not through yet." Some time later, he pays them and shows them the door. They take the money quickly and appear to be in tears. Sabrina's nose is bleeding. They leave and he closes the door behind them. McDermott, Van Paten and Bateman are seated in a bar lounge with drinks in front of them, discussing women. "If they have a good personality and they are not great looking, who fucking cares?" says McDermott. "Well let's just say hypothetically, what if they have a good personality?" replies Bateman. There is a moment of silence, and then all three men burst out laughing. "There are no girls with good personalities!" they say in unison, high-fiving each other. Van Paten says "A good personality consists of a chick with a little hard body who will satisfy all sexual demands without being too slutty about things, and who will essentially keep her dumb fucking mouth shut." McDermott continues: "The only girls with good personalities who are smart or maybe funny or halfway intelligent or talented, though god knows what the fuck that means, are ugly chicks." Van Paten agrees. "And this is because they have to make up for how fucking unattractive they are." Bateman asks them if they know what Ed Gein said about women. Van Paten: "Ed Gein? Maitre d' at Canal Bar?" "No. Serial killer. Wisconsin. The 50's." "What did Ed say?" "He said 'When I see a pretty girl walking down the street, I think two things. One part wants me to take her out, talk to her, be real nice and sweet and treat her right.'" McDermott: "And what did the other part of him think?" "What her head would look like on a stick!" Bateman laughs heartily, but Van Paten and McDermott just look at each other nervously. Luis comes up to their table and says hello. He takes out his new business card and asks their opinion on it. It is a nice looking card with gold lettering. Van Paten says it looks nice. McDermott is uninterested. Bateman swallows as a dramatic crescendo of music starts. Luis leaves and walks up the stairs. Bateman watches him go and Luis gives him look back over his shoulder. Van Paten asks about dinner. "Is that all you ever have to contribute?" snaps Bateman. "Fucking dinner?" McDermott tells him to cheer up. "What's the matter? No shiatsu this morning?" Bateman pushes his hand away as he tries to touch his shoulder. "Do that again and you'll draw back a stub." McDermott tells him "Hang on there little buddy," but Bateman stands up and goes up the stairs behind Luis. Putting on his leather gloves, he enters a bathroom with nice wallpaper and gold mirrors. He slowly walks up behind Luis who is using a urinal. Hands shaking, he slowly puts his fingers around Luis' neck. Luis turns around, looks at Patrick's hands, takes off one of his gloves, and plants a kiss on the back of his hand. "God. Patrick, why here?" Patrick is too shocked to say anything and he can't bring himself to kill Luis. "I've seen you looking at me. I've noticed your... hot body," Luis says, rubbing a finger over Patrick's mouth. "Don't be shy. You can't imagine how long I've wanted this, ever since that Christmas party at Arizona 206. You know the one where you were wearing that red striped paisley Armani tie..." Patrick walks over to the sink in a daze and starts washing his hands, with his gloves still on. He looks like he's about to cry. Luis walks up behind him. "I want you. I want you too!" Patrick starts walking towards the door. "Patrick?" "WHAT IS IT?" he yells. "Where are you going?" "I've got to return some videotapes." He rushes down the stairs. He runs into a man holding a tray of glasses. Looking up the stairs, he sees Luis make a 'call me' gesture with his hand. He leaves without saying a word to McDermott or Van Paten. Patrick walks down the hall to his office. He stops. Kimball is leaning over Jean's desk, talking to her about any reservations Paul Allen might have made. "I've been wanting to talk with you, come into my office," Patrick says, shaking his hand. "Jean. Great jacket. Matsuda?" Inside his office. "Do you remember where you were the night of Paul's disappearance?" asks Kimball. "Which was on the 20th of December." "God. I guess I was probably returning videotapes." He looks at his datebook. "I had a date with a girl named Veronica." "That's not what I've got," says Kimball. "What?" "That's not the information I've received." "What information have you received? I could be wrong." "When was the last time you were with Paul Allen?" "We'd gone to a new musical called 'Oh Africa, Brave Africa'. It was laugh riot. That was about it. I think we had dinner. I hope I've been informative. Long day. I'm a bit scattered." "I'm a bit scattered too. How about lunch in a week or so, when I've sorted out all of this information?" Patrick says okay. Kimball asks him to sort out exactly where he was on the night of the disappearance. "Absolutely. I'm with you on that one." Kimball takes a CD out of his briefcase. "Huey Lewis and the News! Great stuff! I just bought it on my way over here! Have you heard it?" Patrick is stunned, and terrified of possibly becoming friends with this man. "Never. I mean I don't really like singers." "Not a big music fan, huh?" "No I like music, just they're... Huey's too black sounding for me." "To each his own." Kimball closes his briefcase. "So, lunch next week?" "I'll be there." Patrick and Courtney are having sex. Patrick orgasms, then rolls off her. He pulls a stuffed black cat from underneath himself, putting it on Courtney's lap. He gets off the bed and starts getting dressed in front of a mirror. "Will you call me before Easter?" she asks. "Maybe." "What are you doing tonight?" "Dinner at uh, River Cafe." "That's nice," she says, lighting a cigarette. "I never knew you smoked." "You never noticed. Listen, Patrick, can we talk?" "You look... marvelous. There's nothing to say," he says, shutting her out. "You're going to marry Luis." "Isn't that special... Patrick? If I don't see you before Easter, have a nice one okay?" she asks, with a hint of depression in her voice. "You too." He starts to leave. "Patrick?" "Yeah?" "Nothing..." He leaves. A club. Androgynous men and women pack the dance floor. The song 'Pump up the Volume' is playing. Bryce is telling Bateman about STDs while in line to use private stalls for drugs. "There's this theory now that if you can catch the AIDS virus by having sex with someone who is infected, you can catch anything. Alzheimer's, muscular dystrophy, hemophilia, leukemia, diabetes, dyslexia!" "I'm not sure but I don't think dyslexia is a disease," says Bateman. "But who knows? They don't know that. Prove it." Bryce snorts some white powder. "Oh God. It's a fucking milligram of sweetener." Patrick sniffs some. "I want to get high off this, not sprinkle it on my fucking oatmeal." "It's definitely weak, but I have a feeling if we do enough of it we'll be okay," says Bateman. Someone leans over the divider. "Could you keep it down? I'm trying to do drugs!" "Fuck you!" says Bryce. Bateman tells him to calm down. "We'll do it anyway." "That is if the faggot in the next STALL thinks it's okay!" "Fuck you!" says the man. "Fuck YOU!" says Bryce. "Sorry dude. Steroids. Okay let's do it." A club balcony. The song 'What's On Your Mind' is playing. Three blonde women are seated across from Patrick. One of them asks where Craig went. Bryce tells them Gorbachev is downstairs and McDermott went to sign a peace treaty. "He's the one behind Glasnost." Bryce makes a 'he went to get cocaine' gesture to Bateman by tapping his nose. "I thought he was in mergers and acquisitions," she says. "You're not confused are you?" asks Bryce. "No, not really." Another woman says "Gorbachev is NOT downstairs." "Karen's right, Gorbachev is not down stairs. He's at Tunnel." Bateman tells one of the girls to ask him a question. "So what do you do?" "I'm into uh, well murders and executions mostly." "Do you like it?" "Well that depends, why?" "Well most guys I know, who work in mergers and acquisitions, really don't like it." He asks her where she works out. On the street, Patrick and the girl are talking. "You think I'm dumb don't you. You think all models are dumb." "No. I really don't." "That's okay. I don't mind. There's something sweet about you." They both get in the back of a cab. Somewhere a car alarm is going off. Patrick is lounging on the sofa in his office. He has sunglasses on. Between his fingers is a lock of blonde hair. Jean knocks on his door, and he quickly stuffs the hair into his shirt pocket. He picks up a paper and starts twirling a pen. She enters slowly, wearing a baggy brown coat and beige shirt. "Doin' the crossword?" she asks. Every line of the crossword is filled in with either 'meat' or 'bones'. She asks him if he needs any help, but he ignores her. She puts something on his desk. As she walks back to the door, he says "Jean, would you like to accompany me to dinner? That is, if you're not doing anything." She says she doesn't have any plans. He sits up and crosses his legs. "Well! Isn't this a coincidence. Listen, where should we go?" She says she doesn't care where. "How about anywhere you want?" he tells her. "I don't know Patrick, I can't make this decision." "Come on!" he says, chuckling and pointing his pen at her. "Where do you want to go? Anywhere you want, just say it, I can get us in anywhere." She thinks for a minute. "How about..." Patrick flips through his Zagat booklet. "Dorsia?" Patrick looks up. "So. Dorsia is where Jean wants to go." "I don't know, we'll go wherever you want to go." "Dorsia is fine." He picks up a phone and dials the restaurant. "Dorsia, yes?" says the man on the other end. Can you take two tonight at, oh, say nine o'clock?" "We're totally booked." "Really? That's great." "No I said we are totally booked!" "Two at nine? Perfect! See you then!" He hangs up. Jean gives him a quizzical look. "Yeah?" he asks, taking off his sunglasses. "You're... dressed okay." "You didn't give a name." "They know me," he lies. "Why don't you meet me at my place at 7:00 for drinks?" She smiles and starts to leave. "And Jean? You might want to change before we go out." Jean looks out the window of Patrick's place. A telescope is pointed out the window. She's dressed in a pretty green strapless dress. "Patrick it's so elegant. What a wonderful view." Patrick gets some frozen sorbet out of the fridge. Next to the sorbet is a severed head wrapped in plastic. "Jean, sorbet?" "Thanks Patrick. I'd love some." He gives it to her. "Do you want a bite?" "I'm on a diet, but thank you," he says. "No need to lose any weight. You're kidding right? You look great," she tells him. "Very fit." "You can always be thinner... look better." "Well, maybe we shouldn't go out to dinner. I don't want to ruin your willpower." "That's alright. I'm not very good at controlling it anyway." He goes over to a kitchen drawer and starts running his finger over some steak knives. "So, what do you want to do with your life? Just briefly summarize. And don't tell me you enjoy working with children." She tells him she'd like to travel and maybe go back to school. "I don't really know. I'm at a point in my life where there seems to be so many possibilities." Patrick runs his hand across some stainless steel meat cleavers on a triangular base. "I'm just so unsure." He asks her if she has a boyfriend. "No, not really." "Interesting." "Are you seeing anyone? I mean, seriously?" she asks. "Maybe. I don't know. Not really," he says with a smile. "Jean, do you feel, fulfilled? I mean, in your life?" "I guess I do. For a long time I was too focused on my work. But now I've really begun to think about changing myself, developing and growing." Patrick reaches into a closet and takes out some silver duct tape. "Growing. I'm glad you said that. Did you know that Ted Bundy's first dog, a collie, was named Lassie?" he laughs. "Who's Ted Bundy?" "Forget it." "What's that?" "Duct tape. I need it for... taping something." "Patrick, have you ever wanted to make someone happy?" She starts to put her spoon down on his coffee table. "No! Put it in the carton!" "Sorry." He takes something else out of the closet and walks behind her. She repeats her question. "I'm looking for uh..." He holds up a nail gun and points it at the back of her unsuspecting head. "I guess you could say I just want to have a meaningful relationship with someone special." His finger moves toward the trigger. The phone rings, and the answering machine picks it up. It's Evelyn. "Patrick... Patrick! I know you're there. Pick up the phone you bad boy. What are you up to tonight?" He puts the nailgun down behind the couch. "It's me. Don't try to hide. I hope you're not out there with some number you picked up because you're MY Mr. Bateman. My boy next door." Jean sips some wine, looking at Patrick as she listens. "Anyway you never called me and you said you would, and I'll leave a message for Jean about this tomorrow to remind you, but we're having dinner with Melania and Taylor, you know Melania she went to Sweetbriar. And we're meeting at the Cornell club. So I'll see you tomorrow morning honey!" Patrick winces. "Sorry I know you hate that. Bye Patrick. Bye Mr. Big Time CEO. Bye bye." She hangs up. Jean says "Was that Evelyn? Are you still seeing her?" He doesn't answer. "I'm sorry. I have no right to ask that. Do you want me to go?" "Yeah," he finally says. "I don't think I can control myself." "I know I should go. I know I have a tendency to get involved with unavailable men." She asks him if he wants her to go. "I think if you stay, something bad will happen. I think I might hurt you. You don't want to get hurt, do you?" "No, I guess not. I don't want to get bruised." She gets up and starts leaving. On her way out, she reminds him that he has a dinner date with Kimball the next day. "Thanks. It slipped my mind completely." A crowded restaurant. Bateman and Kimball sit across from each other, eating some beef dishes. "So. The night he disappeared. Any thoughts about what you did?" asks Kimball. "I'm not sure. Uh, I had a shower, and some sorbet?" "I think you're getting your dates mixed up." "Well, where do you place Paul that night?" He tells Patrick that according to his datebook, Paul had dinner with Marcus Halberstram, thought Marcus denied it. "Does Marcus have an alibi?" "Yes. I've checked it out, it's clean. Now, where were you?" "Well, where was Marcus?" "He wasn't with Paul Allen. He was at Atlantis with Craig McDermott, Fredrick Dibble, Harry Newman, George Butner, and... you." Patrick looks up. "Oh right, yeah, of course." Kimball makes a 'slipped your mind' gesture. "We had wanted Paul Allen to come, but he had made plans. And I guess I had dinner with Victoria the following night." Kimball says "Personally, I think the guy just went a little nutso, split town for a while, maybe he did go to London. Sightseeing, drinking, whatever. Anyway, I'm pretty sure he'll turn up sooner or later. I mean, to think that one of his friends killed him for no reason whatsoever would be too ridiculous. Isn't that right Patrick?" he says with an eerie smile. Patrick smiles back faintly. Patrick takes a limo to the part of town where he met Christie. She's standing on the same corner. He rolls down the window and calls out to her. "I'm not so sure about this," she tells him. "I had to go to emergency last time." He promises that this won't be anything like last time. She says no. "Just come in the limo and talk to me for a minute. The driver is here. You'll be safe." He holds out some money. Reluctantly, she takes it and gets in. He hands her a drink. "Nothing like last time. I promise," he repeats. "Alright." He tells her she's looking great, and asks how she's been. "I might need a little surgery after last time. My friend told me I should maybe even get a lawyer." "Lawyers are so complicated," he says, writing her a cheque. She takes it and bolts from the car. The car keeps pace with her as she walks. Bateman rolls down the window and whistles at her, waving more money. She stops and looks at the wad. She tries to grab it, but he pulls his hand back. He opens the car door again, moving over to let her get back in. "Half now, half later." He closes the door. He tells her her name is Christie again, and that they are meeting a friend of his named Elizabeth. "She'll be joining us in my new apartment shortly. You'll like her. She's a very nice girl." Paul Allen's apartment. Patrick breaks open a capsule of ecstasy onto a spoon, and puts it into a bottle of wine. A redhead woman in a white silk shirt and black jacket is sitting on the couch across from Christie. She tells her she looks familiar. "Did you go to Dalton? I think I met you at a surf bar, didn't I. It was spicy. Well maybe not spicy but it was definitely a surf bar." She talks on and on in a self-important tone, neither Patrick or Christie really listening to her. Christie tells Patrick that this place is nicer than his other one. "It's not that nice," he says. She asks where he and Elizabeth met. She says it was at the Kentucky Derby in 86. "You were hanging out with that bimbo Alison Poole. Hot number." "What do you mean? She was a hot number." "If you had a platinum card she'd give you a blowjob. Listen, this girl worked at a tanning salon, need I say more?" She sips her wine. She asks what Christie does. "She's my... cousin. She's from... France," says Bateman. Elizabeth asks for the phone to call someone. She asks if Christie summers in Southampton. The person she's calling doesn't answer. "Elizabeth, it's 3 in the morning." "He's a god damn drug dealer, these are his peak hours." She says that the wine tastes weird. She leaves the man a message on his answering machine. She looks at Bateman when she can't remember where she is. "Paul Allen's." "I want the number idiot. Anyway I'm at Paul Norman's and I'll try you again later, and if I don't see you at Canal Bar tomorrow I'm going to sic my hairdresser on you." She hangs up. "Did you know that guy who disappeared, didn't he work at Pierce and Pierce? Was he a friend of yours?" He says no. She asks if he has any coke. He shakes his head. "Or a Halcyon? I would take a Halcyon." "Listen," he says. "I would just like to see the two of you *get it on*." They stare at him. "What's wrong with that? It's totally disease-free." "Patrick you're a lunatic." He asks her if she finds Christie attractive. "Let's not get lewd. I'm in no mood for lewd conversation." He says he thinks it would be a turn-on. She asks Christie if he does this all the time. Christie remains silent. He tells her to drink her wine. "You're telling me you've never gotten it on with a girl?" he asks Elizabeth. "No. I'm not a lesbian. Why would you think I would be into that?" "Well, you went to Sarah Lawrence for one thing." "Those are Sarah Lawrence GUYS, Patrick. You're making me feel weird." Some time later, the drugs having kicked in, and Elizabeth and Christie are feeling each other up on the couch. Patrick says wistfully "Did you know that Whitney Houston's debut LP, called simply 'Whitney Houston', had four number-one singles on it? Did you know that Christie?" Elizabeth starts laughing. "You actually listen to Whitney Houston? You own a Whitney Houston CD? More than one?" she laughs, falling off the couch. "It's hard to choose a favorite amongst so many great tracks. But 'The Greatest Love of All' is one of the best, most powerful songs ever written, about self-preservation, dignity, its universal message crosses all boundaries and instills one with the hope that it's not too late to better ourselves." Elizabeth is still laughing. "Since, Elizabeth, it's impossible in this world we live in to empathize with others, but we can always empathize with ourselves. It's an important message, crucial really, and it's beautifully stated on the album." All three have sex, Patrick on top of both of them. He moves his face down to Elizabeth's torso, and she starts giggling. Christie rolls out from underneath them. She watches them as they fool around under the sheets, and she starts gathering her clothes. A stain begins to form on the sheets: Blood. Elizabeth is screaming. Patrick looks up at Christie with blood on his mouth and a crazed look on his face. Christie runs out of the room, and Patrick chases her naked. She runs to a door and throws it open, to reveal a closet with two dead women in plastic bags hanging on coathangers. The full horror of Patrick's existence finally revealed to her, she lets out a bloodcurdling scream. She enters another room and almost vomits. Spraypainted on the wall is the words 'DIE YUPPIE SCUM' and the room is covered with blood and faeces. She backs out and sees Patrick turn the corner naked wielding a chainsaw. She cuts through a maze of doors and finally runs into a bathroom. She falls into a pool of blood next to another dead, naked woman. Patrick runs in, covered in Elizabeth's blood and starts biting her leg. She kicks him in the face and runs. "Not the face! Not the fucking face you piece of bitch trash!" She runs through the living room and out into the hallway, pounding and screaming on neighbours' doors, but to no avail. Patrick runs after her, stark nude, and chainsaw in hand. She runs down a circular set of stairs. Patrick reaches the top and holds the chainsaw out over the gap, waiting for the right moment. When she nears the bottom, he lets go, and the chainsaw falls end over end, finally hitting its target. He screams in victory. The chainsaw has impaled Christie through the back. Patrick doodles a woman impaled with a chainsaw with a crayon on a paper tablecloth. He hasn't touched his dessert. Evelyn is sitting next to him, asking him to commit to their relationship. The restaurant is crowded with middle-class looking people. "I think Evelyn, that uh, we've lost touch." "Why, what's wrong?" she asks, waving to someone. A woman flashes a gold bracelet to her, and she mouths "It's beautiful. I love it." "My need to engage in homicidal behaviour on a massive scale cannot be corrected, but uh, I have no other way to fulfill my needs. We need to talk. It's over, it's all over," he tells her, scratching a red X over his drawing. "Touchy touchy. I'm sorry I brought up the wedding. Let's just avoid the issue, alright? Now, are we having coffee?" "I'm fucking serious. It's fucking over, us, this is no joke, uh, I don't think we should see each other any more." "But your friends are my friends, and my friends are your friends. I really don't think it would work." She tries to brush some food away from the corner of his mouth, but her stops her. "I know that your friends are my friends, and I've thought about that. You can have 'em." She finally understands. "You're really serious, aren't you? What about the past? Our past?" "We never really shared one," he replies. "You're inhuman." "No. I'm-I'm in touch with humanity." She starts crying. "Evelyn I'm sorry, I just uh... you're not terribly important to me." She cries so loudly that the whole restaurant turns to look at her. "I know my behaviour can be *erratic* sometimes..." "What is it that you want?" she cries. "If you really want to do something for me then stop making this scene *right now*!" he snaps. "Oh God I can't believe this," she weeps. "I'm leaving," he says. "I've assessed the situation and I'm leaving." "But where are you going?" "I have to return some videotapes." Evening. Patrick stops near the lobby of a building to use an ATM. He sticks his card in the machine. Looking down he sees a stray cat. "Here kitty kitty." He picks up the cat and starts petting it. A message comes on the screen of the ATM: 'FEED ME A STRAY CAT'. He tries to put the cat in the card slot of the ATM, but it pushes itself away. He pulls out a 9mm pistol and points it at the cat's head. A woman in a fur coat sees this. "Oh my God. What you doing? Stop that!" He shoots her in the chest and she falls to the ground. He lets the cat go. A siren is heard a block away, and a police car pulls up at the other end of the lobby. He takes his card and walks away. He tries to steal a car, but every car on the street is locked, and he only winds up setting off all their car alarms. He kicks the back of a Porsche and runs. Two police cars cut him off on the next street. They get out, guns drawn. "Drop the weapon! Drop it now! Get on the ground!" He starts to put his hands up, then turns the gun on the officers. They exchange gunfire. He runs behind a parked car for cover, firing and hitting one of them. He fires five more shots, and both police cars explode in a massive fireball. Stunned by his luck, he looks at the gun, then at his watch, and walks away. He breaks into a run, under the support columns of a skyscraper. He walks into the lobby of an apartment. "Burning the midnight oil, Mr. Smith? Don't forget to sign in," says the man at the desk. He pulls out the gun and shoots him in the head. He runs past the elevators. One of them opens and a janitor gets out. He goes around a revolving door, back into the lobby, shoots the janitor, then out the other side. He runs into another lobby. Out of breath and drenched in sweat, he goes up to the desk. Smiling at the doorman, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pen, signs in, and goes up in the elevator, crying. He reaches his office. He looks out the window, then hides from the searchlight of a passing police helicopter. Still crying, he makes a phone call. An answering machine picks it up. "Harold, it's Bateman. You're my lawyer so I think you should know, I've killed a lot of people. Some girls in the apartment uptown uh, some homeless people maybe 5 or 10, um an NYU girl I met in Central Park. I left her in a parking lot behind some donut shop. I killed Bethany, my old girlfriend, with a nail gun, and some man, some old faggot with a dog last week. I killed another girl with a chainsaw, I had to, she almost got away and uh someone else there I can't remember maybe a model, but she's dead too. And Paul Allen. I killed Paul Allen with an axe in the face, his body is dissolving in a bathtub in Hell's Kitchen. I don't want to leave anything out here. I guess I've killed maybe 20 people, maybe 40. I have tapes of a lot of it, uh some of the girls have seen the tapes. I even, um..." He almost can't say it. "I ate some of their brains. I tried to cook a little." He starts laughing. "Tonight I, uh, hahahaha... I just had to kill a LOT of people!" Crying again. "And I'm not sure I'm gonna get away with it this time. I guess I'll uh, I mean, ah, I guess I'm a pretty uh, I mean I guess I'm a pretty sick guy." He's smiling. "So, if you get back tomorrow, I may show up at Harry's Bar, so you know, keep your eyes open." He hangs up and tries to compose himself. The helicopter can still be heard buzzing around but is getting fainter. Morning. He showers and picks a suit from his walk-in closet. He goes to Paul Allen's place, putting on a surgical mask because of the smell of the bodies he left there. Opening the door, he finds the place empty and repainted white. Three people are talking in one of the rooms, and the floor is lined with cloth and there is a ladder and some other redecorating equipment. He heads towards the closet where he left two bodies. It contains only paint cans, ladders and buckets. He takes off the mask, stunned. "Are you my 2:00?" asks a well-dressed 40-something woman behind him. "No." "Can I help you?" "I'm looking for Paul Allen's place. Doesn't he live here?" "No he doesn't. Did you see the ad in the Times?" "No. Yeah. I mean yeah. In the times." "There was no ad in the times. I think you should go now." He asks what happened here. She tells him not to make any trouble, and tells him again that he should leave. He starts to leave. "Don't come back," she warns. "I won't. Don't worry." He closes the door behind him. Outside, Bateman calls Jean from a payphone. He downs the rest of a bottle of pills while he waits for her to pick up. She answers. "Jean... I need help." He sounds distraught. "Patrick is that you? Craig McDermott called, he wants to meet you, Van Paten and Bryce at Harry's Bar for drinks." "What did you say you dumb bitch..." he croaks. "Patrick I can't hear you." "What am I doing?" he laughs. "Where are you Patrick? What's wrong?" He starts crying. "I don't think I'm going to... make it, Jean. To the uh, office, this afternoon." "Why?" She sounds worried. "JUST... SAY... NO!" he screams. "What is it? Patrick, are you alright?" "Stop sounding so fucking SAD! JESUS!" he screams, laughing. He hangs up, then tries to compose himself. Jean goes to Patrick's desk. She opens a drawer and finds a leather notebook. The first few pages have regular appointments. One page has a drawing of someone getting killed with a shotgun in the mouth. Patrick reaches Harry's Bar. He straightens his dishevelled hair and goes inside. Bryce, Van Paten and McDermott are sitting and drinking. McDermott tells him he looks wild-eyed. "Rough day at the office?" Bryce is drinking mineral water. "He's a changed man! But he still can't get a reservation to save his life." Bateman tells them he isn't going anywhere unless they have a reservation. They discuss various restaurants. Bateman spots his lawyer, Harold Carnes, across the room, and excuses himself. His lawyer is telling someone how the Japanese will own most of the country by the end of the '90s. "Shut up, Carnes, they will not. So uh, did you get my message?" "Jesus yes! That was hilarious! That *was* you, wasn't it! Bateman killing Allen and the escort girls. That's fabulous. That's rich." He asks him what he means. "The message you left. By the way Davis, how's Cynthia? You're still seeing her, right?" "What do you mean?" "Nothing. It's good to see you. Is that Edward Towers?" He starts to walk away but Bateman stops him. "Davis. I'm not one to bad-mouth anyone. Your joke was amusing. But come on man. You had one fatal flaw. Bateman is such a dork, such a boring, spineless lightweight. Now if you said Bryce, or McDermott, otherwise it was amusing. Now if you'll excuse me, I really must be going." For some odd reason, Carnes keeps calling Patrick "Davis". Patrick angrily stops him again. "I did it, Carnes! I killed him! I'm Patrick Bateman! I chopped Allen's fucking head off," he whispers with tears in his eyes. "The whole message I left on your machine was true." Carnes tries to leave again. "No! Listen, don't you know who I am? I'm not Davis, I'm Patrick Bateman!" He no longer sounds sure who he is. "We talk on the phone all the time. Don't you recognize me? You're my lawyer." He tells Carnes to listen carefully. "I killed Paul Allen. And I liked it. I can't make myself any clearer." Carnes tells him that that isn't possible. "And I don't find this funny anymore." "It never was supposed to be! Why isn't it possible?" "It's just not." "Why not you stupid bastard?" says Patrick. "Because I had dinner with Paul Allen in London twice, just ten days ago." "No you... didn't." Patrick is stunned. He begins to doubt whether he actually killed Allen or not or all those other people. Maybe it was all a fantasy. Maybe Patrick Bateman's real name is Davis. Carnes excuses himself again and he lets him go. Jean continues to look with horror through Patrick's notebook. A crude drawing of a woman getting her limbs cut off with a chainsaw. A naked woman nailed to boards. The more pages she turns, the worse the images get. Page after page is filled with shocking fantasies of rape, murder and mutilation of women. Patrick returns to the table. The guys are watching President Ronald Reagan talking about Iran-Contra on TV. "How can he lie like that?" says Bryce. Van Paten continues to ask where they have reservations, even though he isn't really hungry. "How can he be so fucking... I don't know, cool about it?" "Some guys are just born cool I guess," says Van Paten. Bateman starts laughing. "Bateman? What are you so fucking zany about?" "Ha ha, I'm just a happy camper! Rockin' and a-rollin'!" Turning back to Reagan on the TV, Bryce says "He presents himself as this harmless old codger, but inside... but inside..." "But inside doesn't matter," A baffled Bateman narrates: "Inside, yes? Inside? Believe it or not Bryce, we're actually listening to you," says McDermott. Bryce asks Bateman what he thinks. "Whatever." Van Paten says he doesn't like dry beers and needs a scotch. Bateman looks over the faces of the people in the room as he narrates. "There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp, and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others, and no one to escape. My punishment continues to elude me. My confession has meant nothing."

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Bateman's knowledge of fashion is truly amazing, but what about his knowledge of weapons. His knowledge of pain is a true genius in itself, but how many people can spit out specifications on the frequency responses of various brands of stereo receivers and speaker systems like Bateman? The point can be made that Bateman is simply trying to be better than everyone else, have more stuff, look better, and out do his rival workers, but that's too simple. Bateman is obsessed with perfection. But why? Boredom, lack of a personality, and pursuit of happiness all come to mind. It's hard to tell what exactly would make a person with so much so unhappy...

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• American Psycho (film) Summary

by Mary Harron

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Written by people who wish to remain anonymous

The movie is set in 1987, following a wealthy man named Patrick Bateman , who is engaged to a woman named Evelyn. He enjoys flaunting his wealth similarly to his coworkers-through his credit card. One fateful night, as he sees his associate named Allen showing of his business card, he is filled with jealousy. He is so jealous, in fact, that he kills a man and his dog. He also kills Allen, staging it to look like he ran from the country the moment he gets the chance to.

Bateman is interviewed by an officer about Allen’s disappearance. He then invites two prostitutes to his house, and they are later seen leaving his house covered in blood. His jealously is refueled when he goes back to work and sees the business card of another of his associates, Luis. He tries killing him, but his advances are looked upon as sexual lust by Jean, and Bateman flees. He kills a model instead in his rage and invites his secretary planning to kill her as well. However, their evening is disturbed by a message from his fiancé Evelyn.

The officer he spoke with earlier tells him that he is no longer a suspect for Allen’s disappearance. Using Allen’s house, Bateman invites two of his female acquaintances to his house, killing them both, right before he tells Evelyn that he wishes to stop their engagement. After he kills yet another woman, the police are after Bateman, though he manages to lose them by destroying their gas tanks.

Fleeing, Bateman enters an office that is later revealed to not be his, where he kills several people before leaving a confession for his lawyer. The next day, he expects Allen’s apartment to be the scene of a crime, yet instead it is cleaned and on sale. The realtor says it isn’t Allen’s apartment, and when Bateman goes to lunch with his coworkers, Jeans finds details of the murders in Batemans journal.

Meeting his lawyer, Bateman confesses everything again, yet the lawyer laughs it off as a joke, saying that he met Allen a few days ago. He understands that he will never be punished for his crimes and says that his confessions haven’t meant anything.

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American Psycho (film) Questions and Answers

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Study Guide for American Psycho (film)

American Psycho (film) study guide contains a biography of Mary Harron, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

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American Psycho (film) essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of American Psycho (film) by Mary Harron.

• Abject Addictions: A Neoliberal Nightmare in American Psycho and Trainspotting
• Predator and Prey Themes in American Psycho and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

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Critic’s Notebook

When the Stage Harnesses the Power of the Movies

Adaptations of films will be a factor at the Tonys this year. Surprisingly the best of these shows are not always the most faithful.

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By Alissa Wilkinson

A passing glance at this year’s Tony nominations might trick a glancer into thinking the wrong artistic medium has crept onto the list. Among the nominees are “The Notebook,” “The Outsiders” and “Days of Wine and Roses,” based on three movies: a 2004 Nicholas Sparks romance, a 1983 coming-of-age crime drama directed by Francis Ford Coppola and a 1962 Blake Edwards melodrama about alcoholism. (They were, in turn, based on best-selling novels and a TV play.)

It’s not that movie adaptations are uncommon in theater — a number of mega-budget shows have been driven by silver-screen nostalgia, whether it’s “Back to the Future” and “Aladdin” or that stalwart of the Broadway economy, “The Lion King.” Splashy musicals, in particular, often come from recognizable cinematic sources: There’s “Mean Girls,” “Moulin Rouge,” “Kinky Boots” and many more. Not all of them are hits, as “American Psycho,” “Almost Famous” and “New York, New York” prove.

Given how much theater relies on visitors buying tickets to an experience they know they’ll enjoy, it makes sense. Though there’s plenty of artistry on display in these productions, blockbuster adaptations can feel, to financiers, like slam dunks, safer bets than original material. The same nostalgia that drives sequels and reboots in cinema is at play: We know audiences like it, so let’s give them some more.

But intellectual property that’s bankable isn’t everything, and increasingly, interesting theater comes from movie sources hailing from left field. “ Teeth ,” for instance, a musical by Michael R. Jackson and Anna K. Jacobs, made a bloody, buzzy Off Broadway splash this winter at Playwrights Horizons; it’s based on a 2008 indie horror classic about a young woman with vagina dentata. Over at St. Ann’s in Brooklyn, Tobias Menzies starred in “ The Hunt ,” adapted by David Farr from Thomas Vinterberg’s 2013 Norwegian thriller.

Sitting in the audience, I was delighted by these shows even in the moments when they didn’t quite work. They felt inventive and thoughtful, as if the creators had ingested the films and then made them their own. After each curtain call, I left the theater thinking about what made the adaptation so interesting, and what it showed about the power of both cinema and theater.

For instance, “ Days of Wine and Roses ,” a morality tale about the evils of booze, is based on a film that leans into pedantic after-school special territory. But the production rode not on plot so much as on the musical performances of its stars, Brian d’Arcy James and Kelli O’Hara, who landed a nomination apiece — and they were splendid. The acting was also key to “ The Outsiders ,” which, despite its pedigree (and its own source material, S.E. Hinton’s best-selling novel), is more cult classic than mainstream favorite. Its excellent translation to the stage stands brilliantly on its own legs in large part because of its kinetic cast: The performances are loaded with all the charisma and longing these teenage characters demand. Both theatrical productions also depend on songs that were not present in their source films, exposing fresh, raw nerves in the stories.

These join a relatively recent spate of adaptations of independent films, the kind found at Sundance, that have graced New York’s stages in recent years and garnered both fans and awards. The films of 2007, for instance, have provided great fodder years after their release: “Once” (based on John Carney’s movie musical) opened on Broadway in 2012 , “Waitress” (based on Adrienne Shelly’s romantic drama) opened in 2016 , and “The Band’s Visit” (based on Eran Kolirin’s comedy) opened in 2017. Each film told an intimate story about friendship and love found in unexpected places, and onstage they eschewed splash and flash to retain that sense of modest humanity. As films, they’d all had a measure of success and acclaim. Onstage, they were phenomena.

Even documentaries can translate to the stage: See “ Grey Gardens ” (2006), based on the groundbreaking 1975 Maysles brothers film, or the forthcoming “The Queen of Versailles,” based on Lauren Greenfield’s 2012 documentary.

And unlikely pairings crop up, too, in Stephen Sondheim’s final work , “Here We Are,” which premiered Off Broadway last year. It draws on two movies directed by Luis Buñuel: “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” (1972) and “The Exterminating Angel” (1962). Both are masterworks of cinema, but they’re more often seen at the art house or in the classroom than on, say, an airplane. Buñuel is not exactly a laid-back crowd-pleaser. The show wasn’t either , but it was at least an intriguing concept.

The border between theater and film, of course, has always been porous. Stage adaptations of films have had their reverse counterparts since Hollywood’s early decades, when plays and musicals were translated into a great deal of the silver screen’s most iconic works, like “Casablanca” and “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Playwrights often made the shift to Hollywood to work as screenwriters, and over the decades that bicoastal move has been common. The stage was loaded with ripe material for studios, to be sure, but some plays also came with the imprimatur of serious art, which meant elements that might have been eschewed in the decades of the censorious Hays Code could slip through. The film adaptation of Edward Albee’s 1962 play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” which contained profanity technically proscribed in Hollywood at the time, was one of the films responsible for the disintegration of the Code.

But when it comes to contemporary film-to-stage adaptations, there seems to be two camps. There are the nostalgia shows, based on popular intellectual property and an expectation that the audience knows and loves the material. “ Back to the Future, ” for instance, currently on Broadway, is more or less an eye-popping, one-to-one transfer from film to stage, featuring songs loaded with jokes that mostly functioned as fan service. An extreme recent example of this was Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon’s play “ The Shark Is Broken ,” which took as its setting the filming of “Jaws,” and made no sense at all if you weren’t steeped in “Jaws” lore.

The other camp faces bigger hurdles. You might not have even heard of the original, and so the productions can’t rely upon the audience’s memories. These shows also take for granted that fans who do know the underlying story are ready to encounter it in a new way. “ The Notebook ,” based on a weepie classic that fans rewatch endlessly, opted to reimagine its material, leaving the basic plot and emotional core intact while significantly mixing up how it’s presented. The result works powerfully, even if you’ve never seen the movie; if you have, it’s like a fresh lens, a cover of a favorite song that works all on its own.

In a time when theater, always precarious, feels as if it’s teetering on the brink, and Hollywood is barely hanging on, it’s fascinating to see theater-makers turning toward less obviously commercial movie properties for new works. For the work to actually succeed, there needs to be a willingness to experiment with the underlying property.

What’s striking to me, watching the second category of shows as a film critic, is the kind of fresh insight they bring to the underlying material. After all, theater presents restrictions to artists that filmmakers don’t encounter — there’s no editing, no multiple takes, no reliance on green screens, no “fixing it in post.” And the way plots and characters operate in many films aims for a realism that’s almost inherently absent on the stage. Theater requires the audience to engage in a much higher level of suspension of disbelief, and so the writing changes, forced into finding a truly fresh angle on the original. For film fans weary of reboots that barely bother to reimagine their source material in interesting ways, theatrical adaptations feel like a shot in the arm.

There are more to come. Productions of “Death Becomes Her” (based on Robert Zemeckis’s 1992 satirical black comedy) and “Good Night, and Good Luck” (based on the 2005 drama directed by George Clooney, who will star in the Broadway show) have been announced in recent weeks. And while Disney has been in the theater game for a long time, producing shows at the New Amsterdam Theater, other film companies are eyeing the stage too. In 2023, the indie darling movie production company A24 bought the Cherry Lane Theater , a small but venerable venue in Greenwich Village. Netflix, meanwhile, is a co-producer on “Patriots,” which nabbed a Tony nomination for its star, Michael Stuhlbarg.

Nobody quite knows what the future holds for the entertainment industry, and theater is, if anything, an even riskier business than movies. But it’s exciting to see the age-old relationship between the cinema and the stage take on a new tenor — and perhaps it can help reinvigorate both arts.

Alissa Wilkinson is a Times movie critic. She’s been writing about movies since 2005. More about Alissa Wilkinson

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