A surprising film, with glaucous photography.

Rating: 7/10 (11 February 2001)

MAYBE SOME SPOILERS AHEAD. David Fincher offers a dark and cynical look at the modern occidental man lifestyle. At the same time acclaimed and ridiculed, this film does not leave anybody indifferent. Excellent Edward Norton plays the role of an anonymous and solitary man in the search of comfort and motivation in a dull existence, governed by the laws of overconsumption. He initially finds a certain balance in the many groups of mutual aid in which he takes part assiduously, but its meeting with Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), another "tourist" of a cancer mutual aid group, shakes its fragile serenity. However, it is when its path crosses that of Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) -its blazing alter ego- that its life rocks in another type of excess: he replaces the tenderness of the groups by the violence of Fight Club. "I feel pain, therefore I am". The Club becomes so much extensive that it becomes a fascistic entity which will escape control from its founders.
I see there an allegory of a society which notice only the extreme, a society where one replace the corporation by the corporatism and where more and more of political or religious groups, or of diverse pressures, be there to collect the individuals in search of a meaning to their lives and where the violence speak when one is left speechless. It is to be seen several times, despite the hardness of several scenes.