We are not the car that we drive

Rating: 10/10 (5 February 2012)

There is really little to criticise about this film because it flows so well, it is brilliantly executed, and strikes at society at a fundamental level. All I am going to say before I continue is that you should go and see it because it is brilliant. DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER BEFORE SEEING IT! I will be giving away so much of this movie, that by reading any further will seriously spoil it for you.
The movie is about a guy who at first does not seem to have a name. It is not something we really notice, but it is important to note that we are never formally introduced to him. The name is purposefully kept hidden from us because of his basic nature. He suffers from insomnia and narcolepsy (sudden fits of sleep) and starts to go to support groups. There is the thing of seeing people who are more pathetic than you that gives you the strength to continue, and in fact he begins to feel good about himself. This happens until he finds another leech, a woman who is doing exactly the same thing as he is. As such he becomes stressed again, and the final thing occurs when his apartment explodes leaving him without all his possessions and a place to stay.
So what he does is he calls Tyler Durden, a man whom he met on the plane, and asks if he can stay with him. Durden lives in an abandoned and rotting house where there is very little in the way of luxury. Beforehand, they have a fight, and end up fighting everyday and through this create a fight club where all those who are stressed and angry with society come to let off their steam. Soon Durden uses this to create a secret revolutionary army to overthrow the current order.
We learn that Tyler Durden is the narrator, though it is the name of his alter ego. So then who is this guy that Durden keeps on seeing that claims to be him if he is him. Well, Durden is not only his alternate personality, but more so his dark side. What this movie has is two conflicts: the conflict against the material world, and the conflict within Durden himself. Durden does not realise that he is speaking to his alternate self, and we do not even realise it (though there are clues, such as Marla Singer and Durden never being in the same room together), but there are numerous clues thrown throughout the movie to suggest that this is the case. When we look back through the movie we understand how this is so.
On the other hand, the dark Durden is not all that bad. Okay, he does want to destroy the fabric of material society, but he does a lot to help the narrator out. In fact he drags him out of his endless material society and gives him something to focus on. We see at the beginning how he lusts over the new gadgets and stuff but as Durden works through him he slowly begins to shun the material world and the capitalist pursuit of more money and stuff. In the end, even though he objects to his dark side's plan to wipe out all credit companies, he passively watches the buildings explode.
This is the second conflict in the movie, namely between the workers and the managers. The narrator himself is in a managerial position but really comes to shun this existence because his pursuit of wealth is really doing him no good. It is very interesting to see that how he accumulates all of this wealth, but no amount of money can help him sleep. In fact it is quite possibly the cause of his lack of sleep, and the dark side is just a reaction against the materialistic society that drove him to this point.
The members of the fight club are interesting as they are comprised of the workers. The slave that must go to work as they are enslaved to the credit that gives them their luxuries. Along with them are those that are cut out of society because they look strange or are simply social outcasts. Now that I consider it, I guess the big problem with Durden is that he did not have any friends. Through out the first part of the movie, he had all of this stuff, but he did not have any friends. He goes to the support groups and they help him because there are people there that generally want to care.
This now leads me to discuss the whole thing about relationships and materialism. It is not surprising that the narrator is frustrated and stressed, even though he has all of these goodies. The most important thing humans need is a relationship. We see this with the girl because she is crying out simply for somebody to notice her. Durden literally shoves her off, thinking her a freak yet knowing full well that she is actually quite like him. It is only at the end that he simply holds her.
That is what we need as humans: we need to be held. We are very relational beings and by shunning the relationship of others we literally deprive ourselves of what we need to most to survive. You see, we were created to have a relationship with God and the relationships we have with each other mimic that relationship we have with God. The relationship with God is the most important relationship we need because without it we are doomed. It should be so fundamental that it forms the core of our existence.