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“ | What's the point of pulling off the perfect set of murders to realize my dream, if there isn't someone alive who knows about it? It would be as if I've done nothing at all. | „ |
~ Rachel Newman |
Rachael Newman is the main protagonist of the film American Psycho 2. She also serves as the film's narrator. "Rachael Newman" is the name that a young woman stole and used as a cover whilst studying criminal psychology. Her real name is never discovered and since then she is known as Rachael for the majority of the movie.
She was portrayed by Mila Kunis, who also portrayed Theodora in Oz the Great and Powerful, Dora the Explorer in Robot Chicken, Cindy in Extract, and Tanya Winters in Saints Row.
Biography[]
Rachael's story starts in early 1988, when she was 12, having reluctantly gone with her babysitter on a date. Finding out that said date was serial killer Patrick Bateman, Rachael and the babysitter were bound and gagged, while Rachael was forced to watch Bateman drug, torture and kill the sitter. After managing to free herself, Rachael killed Bateman and slipped out, never having the act traced back to her. In 1993 by the age of 18, Rachael was one of if not the top student of her criminal psychology course at university.
Rachael's dream was allegedly to become an FBI agent so as to help stop serial killers from harming American citizens. To get to the FBI she must first gain recognition by becoming the new assistant for her Behavioral and Social science professor, Robert Starkman. Rachael is so sure that she will succeed in her goal, she does not even comprehend the alternative, going as far as to flat out refuse to use the hypothesis of her failure. Rachael is fully qualified, having remarkable grades, above average brainpower and (secretly) the mind of a killer.
However, there are obstacles in Rachael's way. There are three other students who are itching for the assistant job, though none as deserving as her, they pose a threat none the less.
- Brian Leads: The unintelligent, spoiled, vain, vulgar and arrogant son of a wealthy man. Comically under-qualified for the position, Brian has no comprehension on not getting what he wants and flips out when someone denies him something.
- Cassandra Blair: Rachael's only friend, who is guaranteed the position due to having an affair with Starkman.
- Keith Lawson: A loud, condescending student and the only one whose intellect parallels that of Rachael.
After being told that she is too young for the position by Mrs. Fleck, a rude, snobby secretary, someone sneaks into her house and beats her to death with her own teaching trophy. It remains unclear whether it was Rachael or Brian who killed her. Brian then asks Rachael on a date and attempts to bribe her to stand down in the race for the assistant position. Rachael gets Brian drunk, brings him back to her dorm room, begins to seduce him and then strangles him to death with a condom. After being belittled by Keith in class, Rachael stabs him in the head in the library, but not before admiring his great sketching talents. Rachael finally kills Cassandra and makes it look like a suicide via hanging.
After one session with the school psychiatrist, Eric, Rachael scares him and he deems her a "text book sociopath". The death of Cassandra caused Starkman to quit his job, meaning there would be no teachers assistant position. Infuriated, Rachael dolls herself up and goes to Starkman's house with the intent of seducing him to get the position. However, Rachael applies mental anguish to Starkman, pretending to be obsessed with him, far more so than any of the women he had cheated on his wife with. One of whom was her babysitter that Bateman had killed when she was 12, which horrified Starkman since he had told her about Bateman in the first place. Rachael then goes on to confess her murders to Starkman, seeing him back away from her towards the window, he then fell through to his death. After murdering a janitor who had witnessed this by jamming his mop through his head, Rachael drove Starkman's body back to the campus, murdering a police officer on the way.
Rachael was then visited by her parents for her mother's birthday and they had dinner at a French restaurant, while Rachael fantasized about gruesomely murdering her annoying mother. Eric arrived at the restaurant too and was terrified to see Rachael there, thinking she had died due to a case of mistaken identity between him and Starkman earlier (the latter of whom had thought that Cassandra was the text book sociopath Eric had described and the former thinking it was Rachael who had hung herself after a phone call from Starkman).
After Eric called Rachael "Ms. Newman" in front of her parents, Rachael got scared and fled the restaurant. Grabbing the corpse of one of her victims from her dorm room closet, Rachael drove off with it and Starkman's body. Pursued by two police officers and Eric, Rachael out maneuvered them and drove off the road into a creek. The car exploded and Rachael's body was discovered inside it.
Once Rachael was declared deceased, Eric wrote a book about her and gave a presentation at the FBI about how she was a "one in a billion" killer. After the lecture, Eric sat in for a book signing and was terrified when Rachael (the fake one) got him to sign a copy for her. The corpse they had found in the destroyed car was the real Rachael Newman, whom she had killed upon arriving at the college and stolen her identity. Now having assumed the identity of Elizabeth McGuire, which everyone at the FBI knew her as, she left the distraught Eric to his thoughts so she could live her new life as an FBI agent.
Personality[]
Rachael began as an ordinary child and was scared of Bateman as he killed her babysitter. However, after freeing herself, something in her snapped and she killed him in a self proclaimed act of heroism. Since that moment, Rachael dedicated her life to helping America track down and stop murderers and became utterly obsessed with realizing this goal. She was going to achieve her dream of being an FBI agent and protecting the world and would destroy anything, or anyone, who stood in her way. However, in actuality, Rachael was only desiring simply because she felt that she alone was the most qualified. Her goal of becoming a FBI agent was merely one of the few instances where she wanted to stroke her massive ego.
Rachael seemed to be on somewhat friendly terms with Cassandra, but did not hesitate to kill her when the need arose. She even stole Cassandra's dress and necklace after the murder, the latter of which she gave to her mother as a birthday gift. Rachael also proved to possess a talent for causing people severe mental suffering whilst appearing to be talking nicely to them. Even her college psychiatrist and professor, the latter of whom was a former FBI agent, were rattled by her.
It is unknown if Rachael's killing spree ended with her success as an FBI agent, or if her crimes were ever traced back to her.
Victims[]
- Patrick Bateman – stabbed through the back with an icepick.
- Rachael Newman – strangled with a hanger wire; stole her identity.
- Brian Leads – strangled with a condom.
- Cassandra Blair – hanged with a chord.
- Keith Lawson – stabbed with an icepick.
- Robert Starkman – knocked out a window/falls.
- Unnamed Janitor – impaled through the head with a mop.
- Unnamed Security Guard – stabbed with an icepick.
- Elizabeth McGuire – killed by unknown means; stole her identity.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- In the movie there are two possible nods to the 1983 slasher film Curtains, more specifically its killer.
- In the movie poster, Rachael is pictured holding a sickle, even though she doesn't ever use one.
- When talking to Eric, Rachael says "Have you ever wanted something so badly, that you'd do anything for it?".
- The film was critically panned partially for having little association with American Psycho, as it was initially an unrelated script modified by Lionsgate for it to be tenuously linked to the first film due to the latter's acclaim and moderate commercial success; as such, Rachael Newman's character is not canonical to American Psycho, and Patrick Bateman's death as confirmed by the author is quite different.