Nightcrawler

I've been getting quite a few inquiries about what sort of mental health diagnosis I think that Lou Bloom, the protagonist in the film Nightcrawler, might have. I'll try to stay general about personality characteristics and not specific about plot so as to avoid spoilers, but also apologize that consequently this won't make sense unless/until you see the show. The good news is that the show is worth seeing.

So, I'd love to hear other people's thoughts because mine is just a guess, and not a very educated one, but I thought autism spectrum with antisocial traits? There's actually a strong hint of narcissistic personality disorder as well, but mostly in his seemingly selective obliviousness to the needs and feelings of others and the way he prioritizes his own needs above all else. But my (albeit limited) experience with people with ASD suggests that they too come off as selectively oblivious.

Bloom clearly has difficulties empathizing, both cognitively and emotionally. It's not clear whether he can't tell when he creeps people out, or he can but chooses to ignore it. On the one hand, it appears to be the former because if he could help it, why wouldn't he be less creepy? Especially if it would make his life easier for him. On the other hand, he says things, especially later in the movie, that suggest that he just doesn't care to wear a mask for the sake of others. Also, there are plenty of times when he is very smooth, especially when he is committed to playing a particular role rather than trying to be a more sincere version of himself. This is especially true when he has just seen the "right" behavior modeled to him, e.g. the job interview situations with him on both sides of the table, also when he first begins his "career".

I think the thing that shocks the average view the most about him at first is his instrumentalism. He does not have ethics or even really pretend to have them (at least not until ethics both become necessary for his survival and are properly modeled for him to imitate). He is a clever tactician, but part of it seems to be based on luck or mimicry rather than planning things out several steps ahead. Some viewers may notice that his most elaborate set-up had several ways that could have left him unacceptably vulnerable, if things had not gone just so. Perhaps he would have relied on his ability to improvise solutions and have dealt with those issues if/when they came, but it gives him the overall impression of him just being a huge risk taker rather than a mastermind. He is super cool under pressure. He doesn't seem to express much emotion, except the negative, anger based ones. He does not seem to have a moral compass at all. He behaves in antisocial ways that would have him likely scoring as ASPD or high on the PCL-R.

Some of the most entertaining and thought provoking parts of the movie are when he has taken a concept that has been very intentionally soft-pedaled to him (e.g. if it bleeds it leads) and acted very literally and unapologetically on it. For instance, people may be aware of (and passively supporting) the mass euthanizing of animals at animal shelters, but people get quite upset still when they actually witness an animal being harmed (see also, eating meat). Bloom does not understand or at least acknowledge in his actions these very fine distinctions that are frequently drawn. But it's not that Bloom seems to misunderstands the concept or the nuance, he just feels no need to sugarcoat what is, not justify his actions to himself or others, nor otherwise try to whitewash exactly what he does and why he does it -- what prurient interests he is trying to supply.

The thing is, every character in a Hollywood film is going to be a caricature of whatever they're attempting to portray. So it's not too useful to analyze this character in any serious way in terms of an actual mental health diagnosis. Still, I thought it was an interesting portrayal of what might be thought of as a psychopath who perhaps was not socialized early enough to have been fluently normal seeming (home schooled psychopath or psychopath raised by aspies?), or someone on the autism spectrum who is particularly obsessed with self promotion (not like selfie generation promotion, but in the driven, career centric way) and power.