Brilliant

Rating: 7/10 (20 February 2000)

AMERICAN PSYCHO is Mary Harron's second feature film after her acclaimed I SHOT ANDY WARHOL(and an episode for the TV series Homicide). Her movie has been long in the making, frequently having been discussed, because the studio obviously wanted Leonardo Di Caprio for the leading role of the young big business executive who is - for a pastime- also a serial killer. Harron was opposed to this casting decision and she managed to get Christian Bale whose greatest role till now might have been as Little Jim in Spielberg's EMPIRE OF THE SUN. I read Bret Easton Ellis's infamous novel and must admit I was quite bored. It is an endless succession of what Mr. Bateman wears, uses for his hygiene, what he eats and what he thinks about everything in general, all in a disgusting yuppie pseudo-smartass tone. His very drastically described massacres hardly contribute to making the book more accessible. Mary Harron, however, accomplished the amazing: a movie which is much better than the book! Here she has found a style to envision Bateman's vanity, delicately focusing on the empty icons of this strange society of yuppie executives and staging it slightly as satire with many occasions for the audience to get a laugh. This is something which Ellis is completely incapable of, but probably had intended. The best scenes are where the guys compare their business cards and everyone is envious of the other's, although they all look more or less the same. Bateman eventually kills one of his colleagues for just the reason that his card looks more exclusive. Bateman's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality slowly intermingles so that, at the end, he cannot distinguish between the two sides of his existence anymore. Although his hideous crimes, artfully staged by Harron between horror and hilarity, can't be overseen anymore, the people around him are so vain that they don't even notice what's happening. As Bateman realizes at the end: "My confession means nothing at all", so has the film managed to show us that his existence is just the same. In a small role as Bateman's secretary, Chloe Sevigny is well cast, as always a bit sleepy and slow, but just perfect in this movie. One detail I really liked especially: I always knew that Nouvelle Cuisine was nothing but disgusting and an insult to true cuisine culture. I'll give 10/10