American Psycho Ending Explained: What Really Happened?

Look closer at the deeper meaning and messages of American Psycho’s ending.

Works Cited & Consulted:
* Eisenberg, Eric. “American Psycho Ending: What Really Happened.” CinemaBlend.
* Williams, Wyatt (June 19, 2010). “Bret Easton Ellis talks film adaptations at SCAD.” Creative Loafing.
* Watkins, Gwynne (April 17, 2015). “’American Psycho’ Screenwriter on Patrick Bateman’s Legacy and That Controversial Ending.” Yahoo.
* Grow, Kory (March 31, 2016). “American Psycho at 25: Bret Easton Ellis on Patrick Bateman’s Legacy.” Rolling Stone.
* Wood, Jennifer M (April 5, 2016). “19 Things You Might Not Know About American Psycho.” Mental Floss.
.

Transcript provided by Youtube:

00:06
it’s Patrick Bateman a serial killer or
00:09
is it all in his head most people think
00:12
they know the answer after watching the
00:13
film but director Mary herons answer
00:15
might surprise you there’s a long list
00:18
of evidence supporting the claim that
00:19
Bateman has to be imagining everything
00:21
to begin with he starts his killing
00:23
spree after an ATM machine tells him to
00:25
feed a cat to it he uses a pistol with
00:28
unexplained skills somehow explode a car
00:31
he murders a woman with a chainsaw
00:33
nobody hears the bodies of his victims
00:35
disappear he confesses to people several
00:38
times throughout the movie but nobody
00:40
takes him seriously and at the end his
00:42
lawyer tells him Paul Allen whom Bateman
00:44
thinks he killed isn’t dead it’s clear
00:48
that the guy is disconnected from
00:49
reality this is established subtly from
00:52
the start
00:52
through Bateman skewed priorities like
00:54
Valentino suits and dinner reservations
00:56
in the morning if my face is little
00:59
puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while
01:01
doing my stomach crunches I can do a
01:03
thousand now note that during the
01:06
opening narration he mentions the
01:07
building he lives in before his own name
01:09
and he’s defined by consumerism living
01:12
in the language of ads and driven
01:13
forward by consumption with all this in
01:16
mind it’s not hard to justify the
01:18
reading that Bateman only imagines
01:19
himself to be a murderer and we can say
01:22
for sure that Batemans point of view
01:23
does not represent objective reality but
01:26
while some interpret the final
01:28
conversation with the lawyer as proof
01:29
that the murders are hallucinating the
01:32
director has rejected this reading in an
01:34
interview with Charlie Rose she said
01:36
keep coming out of this film thinking
01:38
that it’s all a dream and I never
01:39
intended it I want all I wanted was it
01:41
to be ambiguous in the way that the book
01:43
should have left it just more open-ended
01:45
it makes it look like my all that was
01:48
all in his head and it said it’s not
01:50
author of the source novel Bret Easton
01:52
Ellis has suggested American Psycho
01:55
wasn’t meant to be a movie he has said
01:57
that the problem is
01:58
the medium of film demands answers you
02:01
can be as ambiguous as you want with a
02:03
movie but it doesn’t matter it’s still
02:04
being answered for us visually for Alice
02:07
the story is actually less interesting
02:09
if we answer the question of whether
02:11
this is real or happening in Batemans
02:13
head for the author and the director the
02:15
ending of American Psycho just isn’t
02:17
about this question and that’s because
02:19
American Psycho is not really a story
02:21
about murder
02:22
it’s about yuppie culture the melding of
02:24
identity and the craving to stand out
02:27
from a superficial homogenized society
02:29
okay but if it wasn’t all in his head
02:32
then why is the ending so absurd for one
02:34
because Patrick Bateman’s interpretation
02:36
of the world is skewed by his inflated
02:38
ego and his evident psychosis as well as
02:41
presumably multiple mental illnesses
02:44
from narcissistic personality disorder
02:46
to borderline personality disorder and
02:48
of course he’s a psychopath Patrick
02:51
Bateman is a killer but still he’s not
02:53
the killer he thinks he is as he goes
02:55
insane he can’t distinguish reality from
02:57
fantasy his over-the-top Chainsaw
03:00
Massacre style killings may be an
03:02
aestheticized elaboration on partial
03:04
truths ultimately the film doesn’t care
03:06
the bigger point of the movies absurdity
03:09
is that within his society Batemans not
03:11
the psycho at all he’s just one more
03:14
normal guy amidst a horde of uncaring
03:17
detached from reality secretly
03:18
discontented American psychos immersed
03:22
in the hedonism and greed of 1980s New
03:24
York yuppie culture Bateman is
03:26
surrounded by like-minded superficial
03:28
people obsessed with all the wrong
03:30
things like making impossible
03:31
reservations at Dorsia
03:33
and the tasteful thickness of their
03:35
business cards within the homogenized
03:37
upper-class elite identities blur as
03:40
everyone strives after a generic yet
03:42
highly specific image of success earlier
03:45
in the film when Paul Allen greets
03:47
Bateman he mistakenly refers to him as
03:49
halberstrom who works for the same
03:51
company has the same job where’s
03:53
Valentino suits and Oliver Peoples
03:55
glasses and goes to the same barber as
03:57
Bateman but everyone we see in Batemans
04:00
company appears to be the same person
04:02
it’s no wonder that I done
04:03
are constantly mistaken and swapped
04:05
throughout the film that the lawyer has
04:07
mistaken Paul Allen or perhaps Bateman
04:10
has and killed the wrong person becomes
04:12
not only plausible but also an
04:14
expression of the general confusion
04:16
resulting from the loss of individual
04:18
identity I simply am NOT meanwhile
04:24
although Bateman tries like the rest to
04:26
fit in the emptiness of his lifestyle
04:28
also fuels a craving to stand out in
04:31
order to escape the conformity that he
04:33
on some level despises Bateman leads a
04:35
second life as a killer where he’s
04:38
unfettered from the bounds of society
04:40
although he actually wants to be seen as
04:42
a murderer as someone different from the
04:44
rest of society Bateman is denied even
04:46
the satisfaction by every self-absorbed
04:49
yuppie he meets who ignores his
04:51
confessions or thinks he’s joking I need
04:54
to engage in homicidal behavior on a
04:56
massive scale but I have no other way to
04:59
fulfill my needs talk about what Patrick
05:05
nobody comes running when they hear a
05:07
chainsaw in the stairwell they’re
05:08
actually too self-involved to care when
05:11
he’s seen stuffing a body into the trunk
05:13
of a car the witness is only interested
05:15
in where did you get that overnight bag
05:18
the final scene contains an homage to
05:20
Sartre ZnO exit a play about three
05:23
people trapped in a room that is
05:24
revealed to be held here behind Bateman
05:27
we see a sign that reads this is not an
05:30
exit at the end of no exit the
05:32
characters have the freedom to leave the
05:33
room but they can’t bring themselves to
05:35
do it they’re too obsessed with how the
05:37
others perceive them likewise in
05:39
American Psycho Bateman achieves no
05:42
catharsis he’s trapped in his own
05:44
personal hell because he requires the
05:46
recognition of the other yuppies to
05:48
confirm his identity as a murderer the
05:50
irony is the
05:51
Feynman’s real crimes may as well be
05:53
fantasy the lack of acknowledging his
05:55
reality drives Bateman further into
05:58
madness and existential despair his
06:01
confession has meant nothing both the
06:06
film in the novel and with ambiguity
06:08
asking us to examine our own distorted
06:11
points of view or detachments from
06:12
deeper reality like Patrick Bateman we
06:15
may be trapped craving the approval of
06:17
others and denying ourselves the ability
06:19
to distinguish fantasies from our
06:21
reality
06:28
[Music]
06:35
you