If you’re a film buff, you’ve no doubt seen or heard of the hit 2000 horror comedy American Psycho, starring Christian Bale. The film, which was written and directed by Mary Harron based on the 1991 Bret Easton Ellis novel of the same name, has gone on to become a cultural touchstone in the decades since its release, offering some incredibly distinct visuals, bizarre performances, and over-the-top depictions of violence. The ending of American Psycho has specifically been the subject of much discussion, as the ambiguous conclusion has left generations of film fans scratching their heads in confusion. Luckily, we’re here to explain and unpack the final moments of the film, and see what we can discover regarding the themes and concepts at play.
At this time, we’d normally advise you not to read ahead unless you’ve already seen the movie, as the following write-up will contain major spoilers for the entirety of American Psycho. However, this 24-year-old classic is so ethereal, dream-like, and unreliable in its delivery of the so-called truth that you could probably enjoy it just as much if you watch it for the first time knowing exactly what will happen. As always, proceed with your own discretion. Bookmark this page and return later if spoilers are a concern for you. Without any further discussion, let’s unpack the plot of American Psycho, and hack and slash our way through an explanation of the movie’s final act.
How Did The Film Get Made?
The American Psycho novel was long believed to be completely impossible to film. It contains such long, drawn out descriptions of simple routines and outfits juxtaposed with even longer, visceral descriptions of blood, guts, and gore. That includes a few nauseating passages describing rotting human flesh and decapitated heads in excruciating detail. Mary Harron joined the project specifically to tackle this seemingly impossible problem. She felt that other offers she had received at the time were too safe and boring. Likewise, Christian Bale was told by numerous insiders that taking on the role of New York socialite turned serial killer Patrick Bateman was career suicide. Though, Harron claims Bale was the only performer who truly understood the psychology and intention of her script.
Eventually, Harron managed to draft a script for the film which took core elements, themes, and characters from the original source material, and added a layer of black comedy and satire to account for the off-the-walls violence that audiences would be subjected to. Had the film been shot more faithful to the American Psycho novel, it would have surely been given a rating of NC-17 and been banned in theaters across the globe. Luckily, Harron’s exploration of tribalism, capitalism, and social privilege walks the line of what is and is not acceptable to show in theaters, resulting in the cult classic film that exists today.
What Happens In American Psycho?
As stated, American Psycho centers on a wealthy New York socialite named Patrick Bateman, who works in the high octane world of investment banking in the late 1980s. In the first act of the film, Bateman spends an extended period of time walking the audience through his highly stringent morning routine via voiceover. The routine, which takes several hours each day, includes a chemical peel of the face, an all-over lathering with dozens of expensive moisturizers, and an exercise regiment of over 1,000 stomach crunches with an ice pack over his eyes. As Bateman concludes his routine, he seems to question the validity of his own existence, establishing from the very beginning of the film that he is not a reliable narrator.
As the film continues, Bateman engages in the daily minutia of dining in fine restaurants, networking with his peers, and comparing notes on trivial things such as the print and lamination of business cards. The entire time, Bateman laments his misery and hatred for his cohorts, especially Jared Leto’s Paul Allen, who seems to one-up Bateman at every turn. Early on, Bateman becomes so enraged at Allen’s exceptional new business card and ability to reserve a seat at a highly exclusive dining locale that he takes out his frustrations by slaying a homeless man and his dog in a dark alley. This ultimately fails to satiate the socialite’s bloodlust, and he later invites an inebriated Allen into his apartment, killing him in a bizarre and ritualistic sacrifice.
How Does Patrick Bateman Get Away With Murder?
After the disappearance of Paul Allen, a private investigator by the name of Donald Kimball begins snooping around Patrick Bateman’s workplace. Depending on the scene, Willem Dafoe’s Kimball shifts from highly suspect of Bateman’s involvement in Allen’s disappearance to fully dismissive. Apparently, director Mary Harron instructed Dafoe to portray each scene in three distinct styles. One that suggests he is suspicious of Bateman, one where he is completely clueless, and one where he isn’t sure one way or the other. In the final edit, shots from each of these distinct portrayals are stitched together in rapid succession, causing the audience to constantly question whether Bateman will be caught or not.
Despite Kimball’s involvement, Bateman refuses to slow his role, and continues to murder and maim his colleagues with increasing frequency. Throughout the second act of American Psycho, Bateman tortures a pair of sex workers, strangles one of his associates in a public restroom, and even decapitates a model and jams her severed head in his freezer. Growing increasingly deranged, Bateman murders one of his female associates in front of a sex worker after sleeping with them both. As the sex worker, Christie, runs for her life, she finds numerous corpses strewn across Bateman’s apartment, dismembered and rotting to various degrees. Even as he grows more and more flagrant, the private investigator determines that Patrick Bateman is not a killer, and clears him from the list of suspects in the Paul Allen case.
How Does American Psycho End?
As American Psycho draws closer to its final scene, Patrick Bateman becomes fully untethered from reality. He begins hallucinating violent imagery, including one instance where he sees a text display “Feed Me A Stray Cat” on an ATM. He launches into an all-out killing spree in the streets of New York, slaying a random woman, a security guard, and a janitor, before engaging in a shootout with the police. Bateman concludes the evening by barricading himself in his office and leaving his lawyer a detailed voicemail confessing to all of his crimes. The following morning, Bateman continues to confess to his other colleagues, who take his tales of blood and gore as some kind of bizarre joke. One of his coworkers even argues that he recently had lunch with Paul Allen, suggesting that Bateman must not have killed him in the first place.
In the closing moments of the film, Patrick Bateman sits silently as his cohorts discuss the state of American politics at a fine dining establishment. Bateman falls silent, and internally reflects on his actions, questioning his own reality entirely. Once again utilizing voiceover narration, Bateman explains to the audience that he suffers constant psychological pain, and wishes to inflict this pain upon those around him. He laments the fact that his abhorrent actions may have all been imagined, and explains that he wishes to harm and kill others, and ultimately face punishment for his crimes. As the credits roll, it’s left completely up to the audience to decide if Bateman is truly a killer, or just a twisted socialite with an overactive imagination.
American Psycho Ending Explained & Analysis
American Psycho goes to great lengths to leave the reality of the film fully ambiguous. Did Patrick Bateman truly kill all of those people, or just some of them? Did he fabricate the entire film in his head, or did he fabricate the ending after being caught for his killing spree? Since Bateman is such an unreliable narrator right from the beginning of the film, the audience is completely unable to make any concrete judgements about the narrative, and are instead tasked with relying on their gut feeling. For filmmaker Mary Harron, the truth may not even be relevant. Her point about social privilege stands true regardless of what became of Bateman, Allen, and the others.
When Harron set out to helm American Psycho, she did so with one goal in mind: highlight the intense privilege of wealthy white men in positions of power, and identify the psychological toll that this immense privilege instills within those wielding such power. Whether Bateman is a killer or not, he is most certainly a psychopath, though he is handled with such gentle care by those around him that his actions are rendered completely inconsequential. One major theme of the film is the uniform identity of white men in power. The bankers all struggle to recognize one another, and are often confused for their colleagues. Even when Bateman attempts to confess his crimes, the people around him mistake him for another man. He recieves unlimited opportunities to escape from the consequences of his actions.
In the end, even Patrick Bateman becomes a victim of the desensitized nature of the power structure he perpetuates. He desperately wishes for his behavior to mean something, like a flailing toddler throwing a tantrum on the floor of a supermarket. Unfortunately, he comes to learn that he is nothing more than a cog in the machine, and that his actions, good, bad, or otherwise, have no bearing on the world around him.
So, What’s The Deal With American Psycho 2?
Most audiences aren’t even aware that a second American Psycho film exists, though those who discover the sequel are often left disappointed. The film, which premiered direct-to-DVD in 2002, was written and created with no relation to the original, and retrofitted to function as a makeshift in-universe sequel. The film has been denounced by original American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis, and several performers and producers have since expressed regret for working on the project in the first place. While American Psycho arguably never needed a sequel to begin with, the release of American Psycho 2 all but nullified any chance of getting a proper follow-up on Patrick Bateman and his ambiguous tale of psychotic slayings. If you haven’t seen American Psycho 2, you really need not bother. The original film manages to concisely express its deconstruction of privilege and themes of overt power dynamics without any assistance.
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