FIGHT CLUB
Warning, this review contains MAJOR SPOILERS for “Fight Club” that WILL ruin the movie for you if you have not seen it.
A few weeks ago, a co-worker with conventional movie taste suggested to me that I go see the new Meg Ryan film Against the Ropes. I explained to her that it did not look like my kind of movie and she assured me that it was not one of Meg’s typical romantic comedies. I then proceeded to describe the plot in great detail from beginning to end. She told me that I was correct in every detail and shocked that I had garnered it all just from the commercial. Hell, I garnered it from the poster! Most movies are that predictable.
On the other end of the spectrum, I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind last week, which was just wonderful and treated its audience to one surprise after another. It made me reflect how much I love films that feature clever twists and revelations that change our reaction to everything that came before. Memento, Vanilla Sky, Unbreakable, and The Truman Show are recent fine examples of this mini-genre. I purposefully leave out The Sixth Sense because I guessed its secret after the first 20 minutes.
I believe that the two best and most intense film twists are the revelations regarding the true familial natures of the villains in Psycho and The Empire Strikes Back. My other favorite is the one I want to gush about here, David Fincher’s 1999 masterpiece Fight Club.
Watching Fight Club is like watching 5 different movies. It’s constantly shifting in structure and tone. It begins as the story of our narrator who, in order to fight insomnia, joins various support groups for diseases he does not have. Edward Norton’s deadpan narration is nothing short of hysterical. It’s dark humor, but laugh out loud funny. We never do get to know our narrators name. At the support groups, his name tags are all either Robert De Niro characters in Scorsese films or apes from Planet of the Apes.
Gears are shifted as Brad Pitt shatters his pretty boy image forever and plays Tyler Durden as nothing less than a force of nature. It’s like no other performance he has given before or since. The second movie focuses on Tyler and our narrator forming organized fight clubs as a way to rebel against yuppie norms. Graphic fight scenes (actually more graphic in sounds than visuals) are sure to disturb those who don’t get the joke. The film now seems to be a satire on male aggression and violence.
Of course, Pitt turns his fight clubs into a semi-terrorist organizations who’s crimes are more mischievous than dangerous. Here’s where a usually perceptive critic like Roger Ebert got very confused. He called the film fascist and gave it a negative review. He didn’t get that Fincher was doing a satire on a satire on a satire. The whole philosophy that Durden espouses cannot be taken seriously. It becomes more ludicrous as the film goes on but it’ all just an excuse for Fincher’s true goal. To completely mind-fuck the audience.
It’ like a whole new movie when it is revealed (BIG SPOILER HERE) that Pitt’s Tyler Durden is actually a figment of Norton’s narrator’s imagination. Fincher has played the audience perfectly and I for one was blown away. The puzzle is not obvious and nobody I know was able to guess ahead of time. On the other hand, watching Fight Club for the second time, it truly becomes a new movie. Turns out just about every scene was peppered with clues that our two main characters were one and the same.
Look at the character of Marla, played as a Goth nihilist by Helena Bonham Carter. After horning in on Norton’s support group as another “tourist”, she apparently begins an affair with Pitt’s character. On first viewing it seems as if Norton is either jealous or frustrated that this women keeps inserting herself into his life. Their stormy relationship makes sense on face value.
Now watch the movie a second time and see it from Marla’s point of view. When she seems to be with Pitt she’s actually having this intense affair with Norton. Then, when we see her interact with Norton, he’s treating her like an intruder. Notice how she will never see both actors at the same time.
There are a lot of clues. The narrator says things like, “I know this because Tyler knows this.” Then there are the subliminal Brads. A number of times Fincher inserts a single frame of Pitt before his character is introduced. You may miss them on first viewing, but not on second. This joke is taken to the next level when we see that Tyler enjoys splicing subliminal pornography into family movies (leading to one of the biggest laughs in the movie.)
In the end, Fight Club seems to be a message movie about nothing. Turns out the message was a diversion. It’s one of the great puzzle movies and one of the darkest of comedies.
Warning, this review contains MAJOR SPOILERS for “Fight Club” that WILL ruin the movie for you if you have not seen it.
A few weeks ago, a co-worker with conventional movie taste suggested to me that I go see the new Meg Ryan film Against the Ropes. I explained to her that it did not look like my kind of movie and she assured me that it was not one of Meg’s typical romantic comedies. I then proceeded to describe the plot in great detail from beginning to end. She told me that I was correct in every detail and shocked that I had garnered it all just from the commercial. Hell, I garnered it from the poster! Most movies are that predictable.
On the other end of the spectrum, I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind last week, which was just wonderful and treated its audience to one surprise after another. It made me reflect how much I love films that feature clever twists and revelations that change our reaction to everything that came before. Memento, Vanilla Sky, Unbreakable, and The Truman Show are recent fine examples of this mini-genre. I purposefully leave out The Sixth Sense because I guessed its secret after the first 20 minutes.
I believe that the two best and most intense film twists are the revelations regarding the true familial natures of the villains in Psycho and The Empire Strikes Back. My other favorite is the one I want to gush about here, David Fincher’s 1999 masterpiece Fight Club.
Watching Fight Club is like watching 5 different movies. It’s constantly shifting in structure and tone. It begins as the story of our narrator who, in order to fight insomnia, joins various support groups for diseases he does not have. Edward Norton’s deadpan narration is nothing short of hysterical. It’s dark humor, but laugh out loud funny. We never do get to know our narrators name. At the support groups, his name tags are all either Robert De Niro characters in Scorsese films or apes from Planet of the Apes.
Gears are shifted as Brad Pitt shatters his pretty boy image forever and plays Tyler Durden as nothing less than a force of nature. It’s like no other performance he has given before or since. The second movie focuses on Tyler and our narrator forming organized fight clubs as a way to rebel against yuppie norms. Graphic fight scenes (actually more graphic in sounds than visuals) are sure to disturb those who don’t get the joke. The film now seems to be a satire on male aggression and violence.
Of course, Pitt turns his fight clubs into a semi-terrorist organizations who’s crimes are more mischievous than dangerous. Here’s where a usually perceptive critic like Roger Ebert got very confused. He called the film fascist and gave it a negative review. He didn’t get that Fincher was doing a satire on a satire on a satire. The whole philosophy that Durden espouses cannot be taken seriously. It becomes more ludicrous as the film goes on but it’ all just an excuse for Fincher’s true goal. To completely mind-fuck the audience.
It’ like a whole new movie when it is revealed (BIG SPOILER HERE) that Pitt’s Tyler Durden is actually a figment of Norton’s narrator’s imagination. Fincher has played the audience perfectly and I for one was blown away. The puzzle is not obvious and nobody I know was able to guess ahead of time. On the other hand, watching Fight Club for the second time, it truly becomes a new movie. Turns out just about every scene was peppered with clues that our two main characters were one and the same.
Look at the character of Marla, played as a Goth nihilist by Helena Bonham Carter. After horning in on Norton’s support group as another “tourist”, she apparently begins an affair with Pitt’s character. On first viewing it seems as if Norton is either jealous or frustrated that this women keeps inserting herself into his life. Their stormy relationship makes sense on face value.
Now watch the movie a second time and see it from Marla’s point of view. When she seems to be with Pitt she’s actually having this intense affair with Norton. Then, when we see her interact with Norton, he’s treating her like an intruder. Notice how she will never see both actors at the same time.
There are a lot of clues. The narrator says things like, “I know this because Tyler knows this.” Then there are the subliminal Brads. A number of times Fincher inserts a single frame of Pitt before his character is introduced. You may miss them on first viewing, but not on second. This joke is taken to the next level when we see that Tyler enjoys splicing subliminal pornography into family movies (leading to one of the biggest laughs in the movie.)
In the end, Fight Club seems to be a message movie about nothing. Turns out the message was a diversion. It’s one of the great puzzle movies and one of the darkest of comedies.
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