Size Matters.

This week is Book Adaptation Week so open up your reading glasses and grab your notebooks. We’re getting literary!

Author

Tom
June 05, 2023

Good morning Consumers. This is Please Consume, the Film newsletter that loves you more than Ben Affleck loves being from Boston.

American Psycho (2000)

This week is Book Adaptation Week so open up your reading glasses and grab your notebooks. We’re getting literary!

Our goal this week is to not only speak about the book and film as separate entities but to draw a connection between the two. How is the book influencing the film? What was the process of adaptation? Is it a faithful adaptation?

Our picks this week are a mix of obvious choices and more obscure ones. So no The Shawshank Redemption or The Godfather. And especially no Kubrick, because how could we choose?

So sit back and relax by a fire with a cup of something warm. And don’t worry, you won’t have to read more than usual.

Controversy and Themes

Today’s pick is American Psycho, a comedy directed by Mary Harron, based on the book by Bret Easton Ellis.

You read that right, a comedy.

At this point I’m pretty sure most people are aware the film is a satirical critique of masculinity and capitalism, but to call it a comedy would probably leave some people scratching their heads.

And that’s exactly what happened when the film was first released.

In an interview with Vulture, Mary Herron recalls the audience reaction at Sundance was one of “stunned silence.” Only herself, Christian Bale, and Andy Marcus, who edited the film, laughed during the entire screening.

This is largely due to the fact of the extreme violence and sex in both the book and the film. But, as Bret Easton Ellis commented in an interview with Charlie Rose, if you combined all of the violence in the book, “you’re gonna get about 4 pages and you’re going to have basically 396 pages of lists and social satire and stuff going on in Patrick Bateman’s head.”

The same goes for the film. Most of the runtime is concentrated on Bateman’s thoughts and interactions. Very few people actually die and there’s only one sex scene in the entire movie.

Mary Harron marks all of the controversy around American Psycho up to it lacking one thing: fun. The violence and sex isn’t “fun” like an action movie with steamy sex. It’s disturbing because Patrick Bateman likes violence and because the sex is boring.

But aside from controversy, what really makes American Psycho such an engaging story is the humor.

There’s a reason Patrick Bateman is so quotable, imitable, and memeable. It’s because he’s so absurd! There are some close-ups of Bateman in this movie that are absolutely hysterical. How could they be anything but funny?

Size Matters

Today’s scene in particular is one of the funniest in the film, as well as in the novel.

It’s a perfect critique of male one-upmanship and competition as well as being an analogy for comparing dicks. It’s pretty amazing.

The scene is basically a bunch of schoolyard kids unzipping their hoodies to show off their basketball jerseys; each consecutive jersey is for a slightly more popular player than the last.

This critique was evident to Harron when she first read the story in 1991. Ellis even praises the film for how it “clarifies the themes of the novel.”

He’s absolutely correct. You can watch this one scene and have a pretty clear grasp on what the movie is trying to tell you. All you have left is the psycho-serial killer aspect and you’ve got a complete picture of the film.

So as you watch this scene, pay attention to the humor. This is the legacy of American Psycho, not the violence.

Fun fact: When Bret Easton Ellis and Christian Bale met for the first time, Bale was in full Bateman character; suit, accent, everything. Ellis recalls that it was so “chilling” that he had to ask Bale to stop acting because he wanted to actually enjoy his time with Bale.

Today’s Scene

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