American Psycho

The book is much clearer on this, but essentially, the film is supposed to be a satire on self-obsessed business culture in the 80s. I believe that the ending has been interpreted in a variety of ways, including your interpretation that he imagined it all. However, I remember reading somewhere that Mary Harron wanted to convey that he HAD in fact killed all those people, and that people didn't know it because they honestly believed he was someone else, the overarching point being that businessmen are so vacuous as to be interchangeable and completely unmemorable. Anyway, evidently Harron failed miserably at achieving effect, as evidenced by the unintentional widespread confusion that resulted.

I don't recall the book being any clearer. Yes, it insinuates that it was just an elaborate fantasy of Bateman's, but other characters mention people who have gone missing, so clearly something's going on. It's no less ambiguous than the movie, really. And I doubt that the movie's supposed to have one clear interpretation either. The final scenes are pretty strange, and it's hard to imagine that their tone is the result of nothing more than the ball being dropped on the storytelling end.

I do agree though, that the theme of coporate climbers being essentially interchangeable is the lynchpin of the ending. Nothing he does really matters in any way; the entire lifestyle is soulless and meaningless.

also it doesn't really matter whether he really committed the murders in the film or the book. they didnt really "happen" whether they "happened" in the story or not. readers and viewers still had to experience them.

bret easton ellis says he isn't sure himself whether bateman really committed the murders, but if you look at patrick's character, he is really quite ineffectual. i doubt he would be able to pull it off.

I think this whole mess could be easily figured out were it not for one misplaced line. I think Bateman really IS a killer, I think he killed all of those people and I think the central thing going on is how all of these guys are interchangeable and essentially anonymous and that would all work (a little clumsily, but it would work), were it not for the lawyer, at the end, saying that he had lunch with Paul Allen 10 Days ago in London.

That throws the entire sequence of events into a spinout. If he didn't kill Paul, then why did Kimball show up? And why didn't the lawyer confirm with him that he'd had lunch with Paul (and Kimball even said there was a mistaken identity thing with Paul in London). I guess you could explain all that away by saying that the lawyer thought it was Paul but it wasn't and then apply that to the central "They're all the same guy" commentary, but that's just lazy.

In the end, I really feel like he did everything that was depicted, but I think it was handled extremely poorly, even though I still really really like the movie.

I've had this arguement before, but he definately did everything. Otherwise, you lose the meaning of the book/film.

It's an oversimplification to limit the confusion over different characters' identities to their general interchangeability and anonymity. Clearly, and I'm not stating anything new here, the story is an indictment/parody of the conspicuous consumption and materialism of the 80s. This is played to greater effect in the novel. Thus, we find Bateman droning on (sometimes for pages) about each item of clothing that another character is wearing: the designer, the particular cut, how fashionable it is, how much it costs, etc. He (as well as the other characters) is motivated purely by this materialism, allowing him to identify the minutae of fashion but incapable of discerning the actual people and faces behind said fashion. The attorney is no different. He believes that he had dinner with Paul Allen in London, but it's no certainty that he did. In fact, it takes a character removed from Bateman's materialistic world, Detective Kimball, to state the obvious: that it's all a matter of mistaken identities.

Right, that's how I think it's intended to be. But with Patrick and his buddies you get this sense of not being all there. You can tell they're completely superficial. It's not surprising that Paul kept calling Batemean "Halverstram," but something about the way that lawyer plays it - it's like he knows EXACTLY who Paul Allen is. There's a deeper sense to that guy - which is why it's equally confusing that he doesn't know who Bateman is. The lawyer (I forget his name) doesn't seem to fit into that shallow mindset.

All that said though, I do agree with you, I just think that last little bit by the lawyer hit all the wrong notes which is why it's confusing for people.

I've always felt this as well. To simply explain it away as some sort of fantasy, or even that someone else is the killer, really does dilute the idea of social alienation caused by rampant materialism.

I would suggest, then, that there's a flaw in the actor's performance because the attorney is clearly meant to fall into that shallow mindset. Yes, he does seem absolutely positive that he had dinner with Paul Allen, but, at the same time, he has no idea who Bateman is and he's Bateman's attorney! This underscores the story's underlying theme and calls into question the accuracy of the lawyer's assertions. That being said, I can see how it gets confusing at the end.

It wasn't confusing for me. I saw that guy as just another one of the shallow and interchangable people who thinks one guy in a suit is another guy in a suit. I don't know what you saw in his delivery that made him any different.

Clearly a psychotic hallucination, or maybe killing Paul was a psychotic hallucination...

It's all in Bateman's head. The escape from the police has zero logic and only in a fantasy could he get away with it all.
The naked chainsaw run down the hallway, the dropping of said chainsaw on the hooker is clearly a dream too. Where were the residents when all that screaming and engine roaring was going on?

It's an analogy. If it didn't happen, the analogy doesn't mean anything.

I think textually, you can look at it either way, but subtextually, you're right.

You're hardlining an ending that isn't meant to be hardlined. It's like deciding whether Total Recall was a hallucination or not. You're missing part of the point. An ambiguous ending is ambiguous for a reason; it's not an invitation to "figure it out".

Total Recall was all a dream.

Thanks for missing the point.

So Bateman does kill those people? I don't see how.

Don't blame me, you just picked the wrong movie to make an example of. It's pretty clear that the film is all a dream.

It's not supposed to make real-world sense. The last chapter/scene really sums everything up when they're watching Reagan speak on television, how one of the characters refers to the ex-Pres (picking up my copy of the book that's on the bookshelf next to me, I'll just quote it) "I don't believe it. He looks so...normal. He seems so...out of it. So...undangerous." and "I just don't get how someone, anyone, can appear that way yet be involved in such total shit". There's more, but that's enough for now.

Basically, Reagan and his Reaganites got away with a lot of evil shit and never really got called out on it. Things were covered up and sometimes things were just swept under the rug completely by the public, and Reagan was viewed as this nice old man who could be trusted.

If it's all a dream, what that means is that Reaganites didn't actually do anything wrong, but merely thought about it.

No, it really isn't. Although I guess it says something about a person if they choose one ending or the other. You cynic you.

You're closing your eyes to the truth, Nigel. Believe me, I didn't want to believe it was all a dream, either, but everything in the film points to that being the case. The only thing the people who don't believe it was a dream have going for them is optimism.

To me, the real estate lady throws more confusion into it all than the lawyer did. She gives off this sinister vibe, like she knows what Bateman is and what he has done. The way she tells him to leave and never come back immediately gave me the impression like she had somehow covered up all the evidence of his murders (hence all the paint and selling the place to someone else). And this would have been confirmed even a little more had the lawyer reacted differently than he did. The lawyer seems to behave as if Patrick definitely DIDN'T do it (which as others have noted, might be a case of more mistaken identity), while the performance of the real estate agent made me think he definitely DID. Another key to the whole movie, at least for me, is the ATM telling him to feed it the cat. Since we know that is not something that would happen in reality, it is already established that Patrick is hallucinating at least SOME of things going on around him.

Ultimately, I decided in my own head that he didn't do any of it. The movie ends with the secretary looking at all the crudely drawn pictures of Patrick's murders in his appointment book for a reason. He draws these things happening but never actually does them, just imagines it. Although I did get the sense, in the end, like the realization that whatever DID happen, he certainly would not be receiving any consequences for, so the real murders will soon be to follow.

Oh, I'm not saying it isn't a dream. I'm saying that I believe that everything in the movie is very carefully concocted so that a case can be made either way. Whether they have succeeded in balancing the arguments equally is up for debate, but that does seem to have been their intention. I have a friend who feels that it has to have been a hallucination because the science fiction is too outlandish to be real. I personally think that's not a valid point, since movies fudge the science in science fiction all the time, and that doesn't make them paranoid delusions brought on by acute neurochemical trauma.

It's problematic to view "American Psycho" as taking place in our world (albeit our world circa 1987-89). In doing so, you force real world logic and behavior into a place Ellis never meant it to go. And in doing so, you constrain the story being told and limit the story's effectiveness as social satire. Sure, I can see how the story can be interpreted as simply a dream, but, as has also been mentioned above, simply interpreting it as a dream ultimately guts the story of its underlying theme. Thus, in service to this theme (conspicuous consumption, greed, the need to fit in vs. the need to be an individual), the film is rampant with ridiculous set pieces: the dropped chainsaw, the exploding cop cars, etc. And Bateman's final return to Paul Allen's apartment is no different. Could this scene be interpreted as the final clue that it's all in Bateman's head? I suppose. But I don't see how that accounts for the realtor's behavior towards Bateman. Rather, in keeping with the above-referenced themes, I would suggest that the realtor knows exactly what happened in Paul Allen's apartment and is suspicious that Bateman did it. Why doesn't she flip out and call the police, then? Greed. She stands to make a huge commission in the leasing of Allen's penthouse and any police entanglement is simply going to detract from her ability to do so. Thus, it's better to sweep everything under the carpet.

Yeah, the sci-fi point is silly. But the film really isn't set up to make a case either way. For instance, before Quaid is put to sleep at Rekall, when he chooses his woman, not only does he meet a woman dead-on like he describes, but the exact woman who is on the screen. Rekall shows him a photo of Rachel Ticotin before he even goes to sleep. It's been a while since I've watched it, but I also believe in that same sequence they show photos of the mutants he later meets. Then even mention 'blue sky on mars'. Everything isn't just described to him, but shown to him before he goes to sleep.

Mattioli gets it.

Well, the opening sequence does have Quaid dream about Rachel Ticotin (and who wouldn't?) before he ever steps into Rekall, insinuating that she might be a buried memory. Of course, it still wouldn't make much sense that her exact face would show up in the Rekall menu, even if that were the case.

That's pretty sloppy either way, really. Either he's having a dream about a woman in a Rekall simulation when he's never been there, or Rekall happens to bring up the exact face of a woman from his buried memories based on two key words. Kind of gives you the feeling that debating the movie at length would bring up more problems than it would solve.

Yes, that was a good summation.