American Psycho

a perfect film to test someone's media literacy and ability to comprehend satire. i finally watched it, needless to say i was pleasantly surprised. i was not expecting such a deep and realistic depiction of our modern society. a critique on toxic masculinity. for sure this movie was ahead of its time, and it took years before getting noticed. first of all I had to approach this film with the right mentality: I needed to go beyond what I was watching on screen and understand the message underneath all this apparent nonsensical and over the top violence. Bateman is the pure representation of a person that, despite being already successful and lucky, wants more. as he says he wants "to fit in" in a world where clearly does not belong. he started to feel envy and hate for colleagues that achieved more than him. this will quickly escalate in a burst of violence that will cause several victims. this is exactly the metaphor of what is happening nowadays with people chasing success, never satisfied by their goals. the killings are just an allegory: more and more people, estraniate themselves from reality, and they become mad, they are not able to separate what is real and concrete, from what is pure delusion. this is exactly what happens to Patrick Bateman, in his attempt to reach perfection. this kind of destructive mentality has so many bad effects on the character, that in the end he becomes crazy and starts to merge reality with ideas in his head. He feels bad about the whole situation, and I think that the detective represents the guilt of feeling this way towards other people. Christian Bale as always delivered an amazing and compelling interpretation. he managed to depict the fall into madness of Bateman. the guy was clearly dedicated to the role and he always has control over the scene. he managed to be creepy and funny at the same time. He gave life to a very interesting character that deserves to be studied deeply. it is not an easy watch. there are in fact many graphic scenes, nothing too strong in my opinion, but some people may feel uncomfortable. some dialogues would never happen if this movie was made today. there is misogyny, hate speech towards other people and animal violence. so, approach with discretion. I wish more commercial movies would push boundaries in this way nowadays and be shocking. using violence in a smart way, and not just for the sake of being gruesome.