Many book-to-screen adaptations populate the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) list of films: Blade Runner, The Godfather, and even the recent Dune films have sent moviegoers hastening to bookstores to enjoy the literary origins of the engaging movies. But a film very much in the running for the best book adaptation of all time is American Psycho, the relentlessly dark, yet relentlessly compelling, nightmare of ‘80s excess and moral nihilism brilliantly realized by Mary Harron, starring Christian Bale in perhaps his finest role.
The film is a must-watch, provided you can handle the deservedly infamous brutality.
American Psycho remake
The novel is perhaps the most quintessentially 1980s piece of American fiction apart from Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities. The film delves into the life, crimes, and madness of Patrick Bateman. A wealthy New York City investment banker, Bateman leads a double life: an American psycho and serial killer by night, an American trust fund kid and total hedonist by day.
Brilliantly, the movie advances the book’s theme, offering a scathing and hilarious critique of Reagan-era consumerism, vanity, and excess. But perhaps even more than the source material, the movie masterfully and disturbingly counterbalances its satirical tone with scenes of abject, graphic horror, eventuating an incredible, utterly unique genre-blend.
Small wonder the film has enjoyed enormous audiences for over two decades and grown into a pop culture staple.
Another outsized ingredient in the film’s continuing success is Christian Bale’s chilling, relatable, and unforgettable role as Bateman.
A tour de force, Bale’s portrayal in American Psycho projects an unnerving combination: the supercritical charm, the veneer of someone fraying at the edges but playing along with a surrounding, phony culture, and their simultaneous, underlying psychosis.
Bateman often narrates his terrifying inner life to the audience, and we learn about his meticulous attention to detail, from obsessive grooming habits to cold-blooded, gruesome violence. The end result is a fascinating character study, a portrait of a psychology entertainingly rendered by Bale, equal parts horrifying and darkly comedic.
Bateman might be the best antihero in cinema history if only because he’s so much more anti than hero, a character leaving an indelible mark (a burn, really) on viewers. Horror-comedy, a subgenre we’re more than used to now, wouldn’t be the same without his performance or American Psycho as a whole, which brought it back to the mainstream.
Black Comedy
The movie is also a directorial and scriptwriting powerhouse, a masterclass in adapting fiction to film. Many considered the film unadaptable until Harron and co-writer Guinevere Turner tackled the script. In their hands, the explicit content and controversial themes were transformed into something more palatable for wider audiences yet, at the same time, a work preserving the raw, horrific essence that popularized the book.
american psycho remake
Key to keeping the satirical edge was employing Bateman’s inner monologues, which emphasize the absurdity of both his world and our own. The movie’s super-stylish cinematography and unforgettable costume design, blended with the savagely effective scenes of blood and gore, elevated the story to a cinematic height.