A Bizarre Love Story

Rating: 10/10 (12 December 2013)

1999 has been called "The Year that Changed Movies." The Matrix came out that year. American Beauty. The Virgin Suicides...
And Fight Club.
"And suddenly I realize that all of this, the gun, the bombs, the revolution, has got something to do with a girl named Marla Singer."
***SPOILER ALERT***
So much has been talked about the rebellious aspects of the film. The fight clubs, the liposuction soap, the subliminal messages, the narrator's insanity, Bob's bitch tits.
But I just want to slip on my horn rimmed glassed, pour a glass of scotch whiskey, and talk about something not everybody seems to like, but what makes this movie art, not just entertainment: The deeper meaning.
Which, it seems, I gather, seems to say, the correct way to live is neither the soul-numbing safety of a consumer lifestyle, nor a reckless rejection-of-comfort-for-the-sake-of-feeling-alive Anarchy. At the end of the movie, the Narrator chooses his love for Marla over Durden, and decides on the middle road: enough recklessness to fall in love and fight back against the police when he has to, but not to the point of complete Anarchy, which would put Marla's life in danger.
There's a famous quote that goes (I think) "Anarchy is no place to raise a child." Or maybe I just made it up. I don't know, at the moment I'm feeling rather unreliable. (narrator)
The movie is structured like this: everything that happens on screen between the Narrator having a flashback spurred by the thought of Marla, and Marla Singer being dragged up to the top story of the corporate office building by members of Project Mayhem exists completely inside the Narrator's head. It is a blend of memory and imagination. According to literary/film precedence (The Catcher in The Rye, Lolita, Memento) a story can be distorted by the unreliable narrator as long as it is being told by the first person narrator, and not a 3rd person POV. The narrative aspect of the film is what makes the plot twist at the end acceptable to the audience. If the film was not a narrative, if it progressed in a 3rd person POV, it wouldn't have made any sense to show Brad Pitt's character.
The narrative aspect also allow the film to move along much more quickly, which is necessary when there is so much material in the narrator's brain. The action of the film spans several years, and is really 3 mini-stories wrapped around the core thread of Marla Singer/The Narrator's love story:
Act 1. SUPPORT GROUPS. The Narrator's life changes from an Insomniac/Recall Coordinator/Consumer to an anonymous member of support groups for the dying, until he meets the 'big tourist' Marla Singer.
Act 2. FIGHT CLUB. The Narrator creates and imaginary friend (Tyler Durden) who he doesn't realize is imaginary, and then acts out Tyler's destructive impulses: he blows up his apartment, starts fight club, makes soap out of liposuction fat and sells it back to the people, splices single frames of pornography into family films, and has sex with Marla Singer.
Act 3. PROJECT MAYHEM. The Narrator's imaginary friend takes the revolt against consumer culture to its polar opposite: Creates Project Mayhem out of Fight Club. Project Mayhem has the subversiveness of Fight Club on a massive scale: its aim is to return human beings to a primitive, earth-based existence through anarchy. The Narrator fears for Marla Singer's life, turns himself in to the police, and finally shoots himself in the face, effectively killing Tyler Durden. (For now.) All for Marla Singer.
The narrator is forced to choose between love and destructive impulses, (between Tylar and Marla). He chooses Marla, effectively killing Tyler. The End.
Yep. Sorry Guys. Fight Club is a love story.