Customer Reviews

This Is Not an Exit: The Fictional World of Bret Easton Ellis [VHS]

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Fans of Ellis' fiction will throughly enjoy this study of his works. It focuses not only on his most popular novel "American Psycho" but other fan favorites like Glamorama. Anyone who wonders what makes this mastermind tick will need to see this documentary.

The small world of New York indie films in the 1980s which spun off the better products through the salon centring around Whit Stillman have an obverse in the crowd centering around Bret Easton Ellis. Their product is "This Is Not an Exit: The Fictional World of Bret Easton Ellis" and for Ellis fans a welcome exploration.

But this "film" is more like Ellis's friends at the time doing shooters and then acting out digestible snippets from his novel(s) with good cameras but odd lighting. Rachel Weisz fans will enjoy the advent of her loveliness in this early work. Photographer Huger Foote (son of Shelby) plays an MTV VJ. But after that, casting is a little bleak and appears to have been driven by availability with the equipment schedule.

Lots of fun, but I looked in vain for a cameo by Donna Tartt.

The video itself is pretty good and it's interesting to hear Ellis speak about his works and the thoughts behind them. I also enjoyed the interviews the big flap surrounding American Psycho. However, as one reviewer noted, the actor playing Patrick Bateman was a horrible choice - not good looking, saggy body - certainly not anything like Christian Bale's portrayal in the movie. This made the AM Psycho re-enactments "less than zero."

Is should be known to anyone who watched this documentary that the casting is absolutely awful. Everyone is fine, in fact the Less than Zero characters are far better than the ones in the big screen adaptation. However the choice for the main character of this film, and Ellis' book "American Psycho", Patrick Bateman couldn't be any worse. For anyone who has seen the Lions Gate version of American Psycho, you realize that Christian Bale nailed a difficult role on the head. Now, Bateman in this film is actually, I think, played by the same guy who played Luis Carruthers in the movie. Not only does he not look anything like Bateman would look (orange hair, small and gimp, no muscle) he doesn't act like Bateman would act. The actor used WAY too much expression in his voice, and too much emotion. As we all know Bateman has only two emotions, greed and disgust. Watch the film and tell me you dont feel the same way.

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