A film with brains and the balls to use them

Rating: 10/10 (14 January 2002)

**SPOILERS**I could obey the first two rules of Fight Club, but I'd be doing exactly what Fight Club tells me not to. I could go on for hours words about David Fincher's technical wizardry, throwing in everything from simple jumpcuts to a hugely original use of CGI, but that would be emphasizing the obvious. I could also compare it to its more Oscar-friendly babyboom counterpart, American Beauty, but I only have to point out that movie lacks both the balls and the brains of this one. Finally, I could write a spoiler-free review about Fight Club. But I'm not going to, because that wouldn't be doing the film justice.
It, however, is not as if this hasn't happened to this film before. At the time of release most American critics (and far too many European ones, too) completely misinterpreted the film as being excessively violent (peculiar because the violence is always integral to the story and its themes and, equally important, never glorified) and even fascist (which is as much the object of Fight Club's parody as is consumerism). Fight Club, much like the equally good Chuck Palahniuk novel it's based on, casts its subversive net far and wide. Yes, it's satire of consumerism ("things you own end up owning you'") is easily the most vocalized (Tyler Durden in-camera speech, anyone?) and since that's the voice of Tyler Durden, the Narrator's possibly subconsciously self-created saviour figure (I told you about the spoilers, right?), we should definitely be hearing it. It should however not distract us from the fact that the Fight Club/ Project Mayhem world the Narrator is drawn into is sneakily similar to his earlier yuppie materialist existence. For example, do the Space Monkeys get anything out of Project Mayhem except for the illusion of some kind of purpose in life?
There's deeper stuff too. There's an interesting streak of surrealism throughout the movie, not unfitting for a film viewed through the eyes of someone who is by most standards insane (in fact, almost the entire film is a flashback). Fantasy and reality flow over into eachother up until a point where it's really left to the viewer to decide what is real and what is not (or both, the flashback-humor quip for example). Is Tyler Durden merely a fantasy or does he simply become one in the Narrator's eyes? Do the Narrator and Marla live happily ever after (because the building they're in doesn't explode - onscreen)? You can read a lot into this film depending on what you want to read into it (fascism, it would seem, is one of them) and depending on how you interpret the events. On a related note, many people have argued the book's ending is more ambiguous than the film's (in the book, the Narrator ends up in a white place - Heaven or an asylum? - where people await Tyler Durden's second coming). I don't agree. The film ending seems an explosive version of a happy Hollywood wedding-type ending but considering the storytelling style it's obvious it only seems that way. Did the Narrator really kill himself and is this merely what he wants us to see - some final hallucination? Anyway, it's not as clearcut as it seems and therefore a cinematically perfectly acceptable substitute for the book ending. And in some ways, the film is also simply about existing and reaffirming that existence through (physical) experiences that test one's self. Even religion, friendship, love and the emasculination of modern society get thrown into the mix.
But ultimately that's all side-servings to central story, that of a man brought up on TV shows and microwave dinners and on the assumption that material possessions will make him happy. Also a man who has been kept from acts of subversion so much that they have gained a mythical quality. Who is so disconnected from his own humanity he can't find a way to approach Marla Singer, who is what he really wants. Does he create his own macho alter ego to exercise (exorcise?) both his contempt for society and love for Marla? Does he eventually find maturity and responsibility by denying this alter ego and sacrificing (or at least being prepared to do so) his own life because he understands its worth now? Maybe. Maybe not. In either case Fight Club is both a movie that'll you thinking for a long time to come and one that has an emotional depth that's lacking in most films this intelligent.
So I'm leaving out the quality of the movie experience almost entirely, eh? Well, yes. That's something you likely know already (or you read on for far too long). Still, two notes on that account: the acting is top-notch and the film's way funnier than my comment. So work your ass off, buy the DVD and discover that while you may be a consumer, at least you're one with good taste.
Rating: 10/10