American Psycho

INT. PASTELS RESTAURANT - NIGHT

An insanely expensive restaurant on the Upper East Side. The decor is a mixture of chi-chi and rustic, with swagged silk curtains, handwritten menus and pale pink tablecloths decorated with arrangements of moss, twigs, and hideous exotic flowers. The clientele is young, wealthy and confident, dressed in the height of late-eighties style: pouffy Lacroix dresses, slinky Alaia, Armani power suits.

CLOSE-UP on a WAITER reading out the specials.

WAITER:

With goat cheese profiteroles and I also have an arugula Caesar salad. For entrees this evening I have a swordfish meatloaf with onion marmalade, a rare-roasted partridge breast in raspberry coulis with a sorrel timbale...

Huge white porcelain plates descend on very pale pink linen table cloths. Each of the entrees is a rectangle about four inches square and look exactly alike.

WAITER:

And grilled free-range rabbit with herbed French Fries. Our pasta tonight is a squid ravioli in a lemon grass broth...

CLOSE-UP on porcelain plates containing elaborate perpendicular desserts descending on another table.

PATRICK BATEMAN, TIMOTHY BRYCE, CRAIG MCDERMOTT, and DAVID VAN PATTEN are at a table set for four. They are all wearing expensively cut suits and suspenders and have slicked-back hair. Van Patten wears horn-rimmed glasses.

BRYCE:

God, I hate this place. This is a chicks' restaurant. Why aren't we at Dorsia?

McDERMOTT:

Because Bateman won't give the maitre d' head.

Bateman throws a swizzle stick at him.

McDermott scans the room, settling on a handsome young man with slicked-back hair and horn-rimmed glasses.

McDERMOTT:

Is that Reed Robinson over there?

BRYCE:

Are you freebasing or what? That's not Robinson.

McDERMOTT:

Well who is it then?

BRYCE:

It's Paul Allen.

BATEMAN:

That's not Paul Allen. Paul Allen's on the other side of the room. Over there.

He points to another handsome young man with slicked-back hair and horn-rimmed glasses.

McDERMOTT:

Who is he with?

BRYCE:

(Distracted by the waitress's cleavage as she bends over to uncork a bottle of wine the waitress glares at him) Some weasel from Kicker Peabody.

Van Patten returns.

VAN PATTEN:

They don't have a good bathroom to do coke in.

McDERMOTT:

Are you sure that's Paul Allen over there?

BRYCE:

Yes. McDufus, I am.

McDERMOTT:

He's handling the Fisher account.

BRYCE:

Lucky bastard.

McDERMOTT:

Lucky Jew bastard.

BATEMAN:

Oh Jesus, McDermott, what does that have to do with anything?

McDERMOTT:

Listen. I've seen the bastard sitting in his office on the phone with CEOs, spinning a f***ing menorah.

BATEMAN:

Not a menorah. You spin a dreidel.

McDERMOTT:

Oh my God. Bateman, do you want me to fry you up some f***ing potato pancakes? Some latkes?

BATEMAN:

No, Just, Uh, cool it with the anti-Semitic remarks.

McDERMOTT:

Oh I forgot. Bateman's dating someone from the ACLU.

Bryce leans over and pats Bateman on the back.

BRYCE:

The voice of reason. The boy next door. And speaking of reasonable...

He shows McDermott the bill for the meal.

McDERMOTT:

Only $570.

VAN PATTEN:

(Without irony) Not bad.

Four platinum Amex cards slap down on the table.

EXT. TUNNEL NIGHTCLUB - NIGHT

BATEMAN:

A little something for the purse.

McDERMOTT:

Give her the 50.

INT. NIGHTCLUB - NIGHT

Bateman saunters toward the bar as "Pump Up the Volume" plays in the background.

BATEMAN:

(to BARGIRL) Two Stoli on the rocks.

He hands her two drink tickets.

BARGIRL:

These aren't good anymore. It's a cash bar. That'll be twenty-five dollars.

Bateman pulls out an expensive-looking wallet and hands her a $50.

She turns her back and searches the cash register for change.

BATEMAN:

You are a f***ing ugly b*tch I want to stab to death and then play around with your blood.

The music muffles his voice. She turns around. He is smiling at her. She gives him his change impassively.

BARGIRL:

What can I get for you two?

INT. BATEMAN'S APARTMENT- MORNING

Tableaux of Bateman's apartment in the early morning light. A huge white living room with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over Manhattan, decorated in expensive, minimalist

high style:
bleached oak floors, a huge white sofa, a large Baselitz painting (hung upside down) and much expensive electronic equipment. The room is impeccably neat, and oddly impersonal - as if it had sprung straight from the pages of a design magazine.

BATEMAN (V.O.):

I live in the American Garden Buildings on West Eighty-First Street, on the eleventh floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I'm 27 years old.

Bateman walks into his bathroom, urinates while trying to see his reflection in a poster for Les Miserables above his toilet.

BATEMAN (V.O.):

I believe in taking care of myself, and a balanced diet, and a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I'll put on an ice pack while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand now.

Bateman ties a plastic ice pack around his face.

Bateman does his morning stretching exercises in the living room wearing the ice pack.

CUT TO:

A mirror-lined bathroom. Bateman is luxuriating in the shower steam, scrubbing his body, admiring his muscles.

BATEMAN (V.O.):

After I remove the icepack, I use a deep pore-cleanser lotion. In the shower, I use a water-activated gel cleanser, then a honey-almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub.

Bateman stands in front of a massive marble sink applying a gel facial masque.

BATEMAN (V.O.):

Then I apply an herb mint facial masque which I leave on for ten minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine.

Bateman opens the door of a mirrored cabinet, which is stocked with immaculate rows of skin care products. He begins selecting bottles jars and brushes, laying them in readiness on the marble counter.

BATEMAN (V.O.):

I always use an after-shave lotion with little or no alcohol because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm, followed by a final moisturizing "protective" lotion...

Bateman stares into the mirror. The masque has dried, giving his face a strange distorted look as if it has been wrapped in plastic. He begins slowly peeling the gel masque off his face.

BATEMAN (V.O.):

There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping you and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there.

INT. OFFICES OF PIERCE & PIERCE - DAY

As Bateman walks down the corridor, he passes another MAN who looks just like him.

MAN:

Morning, Hamilton. Nice tan.

Bateman walks past the desk of JEAN, his secretary, pulling his Walkman from around his neck. Jean is attractive, wholesome, earnest. She smiles shyly. She loves him.

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