Mary Harron's American Psycho - Page: 4

* * * (out of 4)

It was a decade of surface veneer and the value of objects, something American Psycho obsessively recreates in its satire of the '80s. Patrick Bateman, the monstrous cipher at the center of Brett Easton Ellis' controversial novel, is a Wall Street Master of the Universe, and a Swiftian product of his times. Like most of the protagonists in Ellis' novels, he is vacuous, possessing neither a moral center nor a conscience for his reprehensible deeds - perhaps because he is among the elite, and from that feeling of having everything, there's nowhere else to go other than into sinful revelry. Even that is not enough to make him actually feel something.

This goes unrecognized in his behavior, and he continues in his day to day routines and rituals. Bateman, like his fellow businessmen, is a bland faced and well spoken man with impeccably sleek hair, beautiful designer suits, sculpted glasses and embossed business cards. The only variable in their day comes from who has the better (i.e., more expensive) apartment, or business card, or trophy girlfriend.

Director Mary Harron co-wrote this adaptation with Guinevere (Go Fish) Turner, and shows a remarkable prowess for sinking her teeth into Bateman's world. With polished cinematography and carefully composed images, she films the beautiful men and women of his universe with style, delicacy and grace.

We see a place where the spacious white apartments and minimalist furniture could have been taken from Kubrick's futuristic fantasies, but clearly belong to the '80s judging from the Robert Longo artwork hanging on the walls. The clubs our Wall Street lads frequent smell of the stylized, carefully sprayed and modulated hair and the velcro attire. A man is judged by his ability to secure a tacky, overpriced restaurant where the specials come in small portions resembling the vacuous paintings of the '80s art world - all presentation and no substance.

Of course, it's not treated with such hoary seriousness as this might suggest. It's fit for our laughter and derision, and the acting in the film is broad and slightly caricaturish. Christian Bale's fascinating performance as Bateman suggests a man without a soul, whose Ivy League speech patters somehow feel premeditated, often discussing the state of the world, or the latest music by Huey Lewis and the News or Whitney Houston, as though he had learned it by heart.

His little plastic smile and clever witticisms feel lifted from the pages of magazines he read without investing any consideration in the material. It's a difficult performance to pull off - a man who clearly brings to the table a lot of information but a lack of investment or even interest. The same can be said for his cohorts who he works with, snorts coke with in the stalls of the crowded clubs, smokes cigars and drinks cognac with in the lodge. He's a man who feels nothing when he describes serial killer Ed Gein's feelings when he saw a woman walking down the street. "Part of me wants to be sweet and treat her right, but the other part likes to imagine what her head would look like on a stick."

* * *

As a bracing satire about consumer culture, American Psycho goes one step further in its depiction of predatory males in this era by making Bateman a homicidal killer preying on the denizens of the city and all those who stand in his way of perfection. Being a homeless bum unable to get a job is as reprehensible to him as a business associate having a slightly higher quality business card.

Theoretically, it's a fascinating comparison. In the novel, Ellis described these killings in hyperdetail, with every thrust and twist of the knife - every spurt of blood. His descriptions of these savage killings was treated with the same clinical precision as his analysis of Bateman's wardrobe, or the style of his business card, or his miscellany of skin creams and hair products in his bathroom.

It's here, I think, that the film makes its key misstep. The murders as presented in Mary Harron's film are neither shot in a way which is suspenseful nor satirical. It's just served up with all the visual finesse of a Kevin Smith film, with unintentional bland framing. Her use of foreground and background action is clumsy, and the killings don't feel particularly inspired.

The alleyway murder early in the film is handled in a pedestrian manner, one which didn't make me say either, "Wow, how banal the deaths are - what great satire!" or "What a fascinating setpiece - how cleverly staged that is!" These scenes play out as boring in comparison with the lavish detail thrown into Bateman's commodity fetishes.

There is a fairly significant series of confrontations in the final act of the film which became ridiculous even within the realm of satire, and despite their efforts to make Bateman fairly self conscious of how ludicrous his situation had become, it feels lifted more from the pages of a comic book than Candide. It builds to a monologue wonderfully orchestrated by a sweat soaked Bale as a tumult of words pour out, the most he's ever spoken of his horrible deeds, but this somehow felt calculated, too - the moment we've all been waiting for.

Commodity Fetishes

Mary Harron was at one time a documentary filmmaker, and the times when she allows the camera to simply observe Bateman are the scenes which work best. There's a terrific montage when he's in the shower, scrubbing his body as his voice-over describes the creams, powders and gels he uses for his skin and hair, and that great shot of him peeling off a face mask which eerily forebodes his attraction to Ed Gein and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (which plays on his television set as he does his set of 1,000 daily crunches in a stylized exercise routine.)

I also enjoyed the scenes between him and his co-workers as they compared the various textures and fonts of their business cards, which directly ties into the themes Harron explores in the film in a way far more clever than any of the subsequent murders. It's a dog eat dog world, and Bateman's just a pawn moving around inside it.

The Supporting Cast

Harron previously directed I Shot Andy Warhol, which was similar in that it had a potentially unsympathetic hero and explored the world of Andy Warhol's Factory. She's enormously gifted in the details of setting and place, and in filling out her world with a cast that seems ideally suited to that environment. Jared Harris became Warhol, and one never got the sense he was acting. He was just part of the texture within the film.

Similarly, she has a cast in American Psycho that manages to deliver fascinating performances despite the fact that most of them are playing insubstantial, vacuous surfaces, not much different than their suits or business cards.

Reese Witherspoon brings a wry humor to the role of Bateman's phony and opportunistic fiance, desperate to get married to secure her social standing. The role could have been overplayed into a shrewish annoyance, but Witherspoon wisely underplays it - the character lacks the emotional integrity to be a shrew. Also very good are Samantha Mathis as Bateman's drugged out lover (who lets Bateman drift in and out of her life without so much as raising an eyebrow) and Chloe Sevigny as his secretary, one of the more sympathetic characters in the film trying to become a part of the glamorous Bateman world of style, but perhaps a touch too self aware.

I also enjoyed the handful of scenes with Willem Dafoe investigating the disappearance of a Wall Street yuppie, often allowing Bale to control their scenes by squirming as Dafoe flashes his big, unnerving smile. Even the detective seems more concerned with his impeccable suit and his taste in music than with the crime itself.

Music

Filled wall to wall with pop standards of the '80s, the film has a keen understanding of music's place within this decade. Bateman himself is prone to deconstructing the lyrics of Hip to Be Square before wielding an axe into the head of his enemy, or playing Phil Collins' empty sounds and lyrics within Sussudio as he engages in a menage a trois with two weather-beaten hookers, the entire time gazing at himself in the wall mirror and flexing his muscles.

The music of that time was unconcerned with depth, only a very flip pop sound which could hardly be bothered to do anything more than that. It's a direct correlation to Bateman's lack of empathy for all those around him. He's more fascinated with the texture of his own sculpted body than in the woman he's having sex with. There's a brutal callousness in that, and the cheery breeziness of the music only accentuates the horror of being a man without a soul.

Misogyny

It's fascinating that a woman directed this film, and co-wrote it with another woman. It's depiction of the dialogue between men as they break down the reason ugly chicks usually have brains to compensate for the lack of good looks is somehow handled in a way which is more accurate than Neil LaBute's gleeful presentation of In the Company of Men.

I think it's because Harron and Turner view these men as vain and self conscious of their skin, their weight, their style of dress - association usually attributed to the fairer sex. These men are presented as more feminine than macho, or perhaps it's the same thing and guys like LaBute are scared of it.

This is Not an Exit

While I wish that Harron had not used Bateman's voice over to reveal how empty he feels inside, being a rather literary choice and one which goes against Bateman's very lack of depth, it certainly serves to get us on his side. He's funny, as played by Bale - a dorky prep who himself is so square that you can't take him all that seriously, even when wielding a chainsaw through the hallways of his apartment.

The movie puts us on his side as Harron allows the story to unfold, not so much because we admire his personality, lifestyle or disgusting and malevolent habits, but because he's really no worse than the other inhabitants of this bleak, bland and boring planet. It's a critique of escapist fantasy that comes with an overindulgence in pop entertainment and the inability to judge one's own actions. In case we didn't get it, as the sign says on the wall in Bateman's final, crucial moment: this is not an exit.