It's no Swindle

In Julien Temple's The Filth and the Fury, the Sex Pistols make history

by Jon Garelick

THE FILTH AND THE FURY. Directed by Julien Temple. With the Sex Pistols: Paul Cook, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock, Johnny Rotten, and Sid Vicious. A Fine Line Features release. At the Avon.

To judge from the boos that greets screenings of its trailer, American Psycho will be the movie people loves to hate -- feminists, Catholic League members, and everyone in between. That would be reason enough to suspect it'll be one of the important movies of the year, even if it weren't also an often brilliant, often sad, always brutally honest black comedy of morals.

The proscription of Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho preceded the book's publication in 1991 (see Steve Mirarchi's interview, below). Ellis had acquired a reputation as one of a glib, callow breed of '80s authors who recorded the superficial materialism of their generation but offered no insights other than a tepid nihilism and smug sarcasm. In Psycho, that wan pose, with its sucking-up to status and its litany of designer labels, took on a gleefully misogynist, racist, elitist edge -- which, of course, was the point. But few were ready to grant Ellis the benefit of his Swiftian irony, especially after reading the book's notorious rat-in-the-cage episode.

That episode is omitted from Mary Harron's adaptation, which is far less graphic and offensive than your average Scream entry. Harron established herself as a connoisseur of outrage and absurdity in her underrated debut, I Shot Andy Warhol, and she creates a similar tone here in the opening credit sequence. A stark white screen is dabbed with sticky blobs of crimson. Blood? Raspberry sauce, more likely, garnishing a decadent entree at one of the chic Manhattan eateries patronized by the coked-up, twentysomething greedniks of the Reagan '80s. Among them is Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale, frenetic in what should be a breakthrough performance), who introduces himself in voiceover as an "idea of a Patrick Bateman, but there is no real me," a person with no human emotions, "only greed and disgust."

Okay, so having these words intoned while Patrick is reflected in a mirror peeling off a cosmetic mask might be adding one layer of meaninglessness too many. But for the most part Harron translates to cinema Ellis's collage of anomie and atrocity, of interior derangement and surface sterility, with dazzling wit and economy. Her achievement is never more apparent than in the murder scenes. Infuriated when a colleague, Paul Allen (Jared Leto, hilarious in identical haircut and eyewear as Patrick's Mini-Me), flashes a nearly identical business card with a trace more quality than his own ("My God! It's even got a watermark"), Patrick invites him to his apartment.

Paul barely registers suspicion when he notices pages of the Times' Sunday Styles section neatly taped around his armchair, or when Patrick segues, ax in hand, into an Entertainment Weekly-worthy analysis of the career of Huey Lewis, whose "Hip To Be Square" plays in the background. Hilarious and exhilarating, the scene combines two disparate elements of the original book with an ingenuity that transcends the source. At the very least, it's a provocative alternative to the role of pop music in High Fidelity.

And of course it's derivative of Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, though in the era of deconstruction, Patrick, unlike Alex, reviews the music instead of singing along with it. But there are other differences as well. The mask of slapstick in Orange doesn't conceal much in the way of a soul; in Psycho, however, despite Patrick's protests of having nothing inside, an inescapable sense of torment abides -- these voiceovers, after all, are interior monologues. There is also a lingering doubt, present in the novel and underscored in the film, as to whether any of the crimes take place at all -- they may all, or most of them, be in his head.

The other people in Patrick's life are no more helpful in providing an objective perspective. Fiancée Evelyn (Reese Witherspoon) chatters on about their relationship while he sketches his most recent homicide on a tablecloth. His secretary, Jean (Chloë Sevigny), is besotted with him and doesn't notice the nail gun pointed to her head. A detective (Willem Dafoe) frustrates his attempt to put together an alibi, then provides it for him. And Patrick's scheme of assuming other identities when indulging in his abominations proves redundant; everybody thinks he's somebody else anyway.

There is the occasional knowing gaze. The worn prostitute Patrick calls "Christie" (Cara Seymour) sees through him, and so does Patrick himself -- no matter how he tries to wriggle out of it, he has a conscience. "This confession," he insists at the end, "means nothing." As the "This Is Not an Exit Sign" above his head implies, though, the insanity plea won't get him off this time.

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Making Filth

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