My fine lady and I watched the film American Psycho again last night for the first time in about ten years, and although some parts of it are horribly gruesome, I'd forgotten just how incredibly funny it is as well. It's a savage satire on the smug, winner takes all, vacuous, despicable values that liberal capitalism promotes, and some of the hammy, over the top deliveries from Christian Bale and Willem Dafoe had me reeling with laughter. My favourite line was probably from Patrick Bateman who says to his fiancée, after he has been murdering people left, right and centre, "I think that my behaviour recently may have been just a little... erratic." It was priceless! A modern Grand Guignol, maybe?I'd also forgotten just how eerily surreal it is. The first time I watched it I couldn't decide for sure exactly what I thought had actually happened. Had Bateman murdered all those people, but because he was so wealthy he was untouchable, and therefore never arrested? But it struck me much more forcefully this time that it was all in his imagination. Either way, it's a strangely hypnotic film, if you can get past the violence. And, like I said, incredibly funny.
It's hip to be square!
