American psycho end explained

The American Psycho ending explained little and makes a point of leaving its events ambiguous during the discomfiting, blackly comic finale, demystifying none of its strange and seemingly contradictory occurrences. American Psycho 's meaning is no less elusive, american psycho end explained.

Patrick Bateman Christian Bale is a New York City yuppie that moonlights as a serial killer, but did he actually kill people? How much of the movie takes place in his unhinged mind? Upon its release, it was derided by many critics as being misogynistic, while other critics went in the opposite direction and claimed that the movie was sexist towards men. Similar to the novel, the ending is infamously ambiguous, leaving us to wonder what actually happened throughout the movie. While both explanations are valid, it is ultimately up to the viewer to decide what really happened throughout the movie.

American psycho end explained

Bret Easton Ellis's opus American Psycho is a disturbed satire of wealth, greed and the Reaganite s and all they stood for — including the ear-splitting pop of Phil Collins and Huey Lewis. The film, like the book, focuses on a stockbroker with a penchant for serial killing — the now iconically infamous Patrick Bateman. In Mary Harron's adaptation of the controversial novel, Bateman is wholly embodied by Christian Bale in a star-making performance that stays faithful to Ellis's writing. Bateman begins his killing spree after his pride is wounded when he finds out Paul Allen Jared Leto , a colleague and rival, has a better quality business card than he does. His first victim is a homeless man and his dog before his egomania is wounded once again by Allen who mistakes him for another colleague. His fragile masculinity pushed beyond the pale, Bateman elaborately murders Allen in his own apartment while listening to Huey Lewis and the News before conducting a ruse that makes it look as if his fellow banker had flown to London. The killing of Allen sets in motion the investigation into the prominent and wealthy man's disappearance — and also seemingly Bateman's bloodlust, as he kills hordes of women in increasingly grisly ways. In an increasingly OTT sequence, police cars are blown up, police officers are slaughtered and Bateman eventually makes a phone call confession to his lawyer, owning up to murdering an undisclosed number of people somewhere between 20 and 40, with the film then entering its denouement. After Bateman confesses all of his crimes, he returns to Allen's apartment but finds no traces of any of his murders and the property put up for sale. Confused, he meets colleagues for lunch and bumps into his lawyer who took his confession for a practical joke. Bateman insists he actually did murder all of those people but the lawyer says he recently had lunch with Allen in London meaning the killing could never have taken place. In a distressed, trance-like state, Bateman returns to his lunch as his colleagues discuss Ronald Reagan, and narrates that he is in pain and that he wishes to inflict pain on others.

When he asks if this is Paul Allen's place, she looks at him with something akin to suspicion and tells him he's mistaken, and that he should leave and never come back.

The cult classic horror film American Psycho garnered a lot of unanswered questions about the true meaning behind it. Or were all the crimes he had committed in his head? There were moments in American Psycho where Patrick partook in heinous acts of murdering people he deemed unworthy of existence. He killed not only his colleague but a homeless man, a dog, a supposed girlfriend, and sex workers. His perception of reality began to dwindle when he killed Paul Allen Jared Leto. Out of jealousy and rage, Patrick kills Paul Allen in his apartment, goes to Paul's apartment, and leaves a voicemail posing as Paul to make it seem he went to London.

It was quickly cemented as one of the most ambiguous and confusing films in cinematic history. While initially appearing straightforward, the movie intentionally unravels at the end, making plenty of people wonder whether or not Patrick Bateman's murders even took place. Did Bateman really kill Paul Allen, or did his rival move to London? What's the deal with Allen's apartment, and why does Bateman's lawyer mistake him for someone else? Is Christian Bale's character actually the serial killer he claims to be? Was this all just in his head? While it's almost impossible to come up with a definitive answer to the infinite questions posed at the end of this thrilling film, analyzing its themes, dissecting its characterization, and examining the director's statements can help unravel the truth of Bateman's muddled mind.

American psycho end explained

The American Dream, the life. It has been a working ideal for a whole generation of people across the world that have spent entire lifetimes chasing that ever-elusive dream. Then again, where there is prosperity or more particularly, the illusion of it, there is going to be resistance, and what better medium to express that than through the most accessible of art forms, Cinema? To sum it up, the idea overarching this is the refusal of the illusory, the materialistic and a recognition of the embrace of mundanity in the modern age, something that was our trade-off for said materialism. The very soul of both movies, sauced up with unbridled chaos is essentially the same, although the mode of conveying the same may be different. Needless to say, both of the films also deal with a repressed psyche and have climaxes that lead to the unmasking of that psyche. But first, a brief reminiscing of its head-scratcher ending.

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Seeing that his doom is inevitable, Patrick calls his lawyer and confesses to his various crimes. However, the apartment is such a prime piece of New York real estate that the owner of the building hushed it up, got rid of the corpses, and is trying to rent it out without anyone knowing. Luxe for Less - great savings on global travel offers. Patrick killed people, but who and how many of these deaths were real is the question. The lack of acknowledgment drives Bateman further into madness and existential despair. Christian Bale's movie roles are carefully picked, and he has a preference for stories that dig deep into human nature. Confused, he meets colleagues for lunch and bumps into his lawyer who took his confession for a practical joke. When Bateman goes back to the scene of his chainsaw killing spree, he finds the apartment clean, with the dead bodies gone and the walls freshly painted. As Harron said:. During the beginning of the third act, It could be safely assumed he didn't see the words on the ATM, "Feed me a stray cat," shot an elderly woman, or killed many police officers. Bateman didn't really kill anyone, this theory states. When Patrick realized his actions don't have consequences, he unraveled. While director Mary Harron has adamantly refused that the American Psycho ending explained it as being all in Patrick Bateman's head, there's enough ambiguity behind the events of the story to suggest otherwise. Movies Horror Movies. But how can that be the case if Paul was dead?

American Psycho is a classic dark comedy thriller starring Christian Bale in one of his most intense transformations as Patrick Batman, a young professional who also happens to be a serial killer with some rather dark tastes.

We didn't think that everything was real because some of it is literally surreal. Instead, it's been cleaned to perfection — and it's currently on the market. A popular theory is that Patrick did in fact kill everyone he copped to in his phone call to Harold, including all the ones we saw with our own eyes — that is, except for Paul Allen. As American Psycho explained, Patrick Bateman is an unreliable narrator, so it's easy to assume that the murders didn't happen. By night, he's a ruthless serial killer. Harron has expressed frustration over how common this reading of the movie adaptation is, as the American Psycho ending explained it is intended to be unclear. Thus, he's at a loss of purpose for his life. At one point in the book, he kills a man who hits on him in Central Park. As Harron said:. American Psycho explained Bateman regained his senses while the world remains oblivious to their own greed and corruption, and the ambiguous note it ends asks if Bateman will return to his old ways or walk away from the life he's begun to outgrow. Overall, there are many different interpretations of how the film ended. Bateman then dons a plastic raincoat and shouts, "Hey Paul! Bateman is understandably confused. Sign up to get alerts for movie news, reviews and recommendations. 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.