The Game of Life

Rating: Null/10 (31 January 2002)

********SPOILERS********* SPOILERS**********
The movie begins by showing Nicholas Van Orten living a constricted, joyless, emotionally dead and isolated but very affluent life in the days before his impending 48th birthday -- the same on which his father killed himself. He's given a present from his brother, who's also been obviously scarred by the aftermath of their father's suicide as evidenced by the chaotic life he's led. The present is The Game. From the moment Nicolas is clued into the leaking CRS pen in his shirt pocket by a man in the airport, his life begins to unravel. (This is the same man who, at the movie's end at the bar at the banquet, holds the contract for the game that's just been played. From folklore we know of the identity of the Adversary who wants a signature on some sort of contract, don't we?)
As quoted in the movie by one of two men Nicholas Van Orten meets in his club lounge: John 9:25 "Whereas once I was blind, now I can see".

But how about Matthew 16:26 "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?"
Or even Jeremiah 31:29 "In those days people will no longer say, `The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.'"

For those who have had traumatic, catastrophic events in their pasts such as the suicide of a close relative or parent, the question of how much they are like them is a real one. (Van Orten even asks his housekeeper, Ilsa -- the still-lovely Carroll Baker, where ya been??! -- "How much like my father am I?") It's also common knowledge that suicide seems to "run" in families as shown, unfortunately, in the Hemmingway clan. What gripped me about this movie was the director and writers' intent of addressing very tricky, subtle questions of personal identity, predestination and the volatile effects of that mixture of nature versus nurture on the human psyche.

The Game flies furiously through that realm between madness and spiritual rebirth a few of us have been lucky/unlucky enough to be forced to play in. The endless and exhaustive psychological evaluation Van Orten is forced to undergo before beginning the game is a tip-off to the depth of knowledge of his character that only an omniscient entity could have of a human soul. CRS is a stand-in for God. Nothing less could account for CRS' fantastic foreknowledge of Van Orten's reactions to each new twist.
Of course this movie is unbelievable in a literal sense, but that's obviously not exclusively or primarily how the director intended it to be viewed although there is a powerful attempt to make it work on that level, as well. But how about a parable? Until I popped "The Game" into IMDB's search engine I didn't know the director, David Fincher, had also directed Fight Club and Seven, the latter being another movie with biblical overtones while the former also deals with psychosis/Multiple Personality Disorder as well as any movie ever could . . . in a wild, over-the-top and hilarious way, that is. The Game, like Fight Club, is another movie by director David Fincher that addresses real questions of the human condition using elements from the action/suspense genre. Exploring themes of personal identity and spiritual awakenings in such a subversive way can have its payoffs, but can also alienate many viewers whose struggle with their suspension of disbelief overwhelms those deeper themes.
What happens during the course of the film is the stripping of Van Orten's wealth and dignity and the shredding of his sanity. All the external trappings of his life are systematically tested to the breaking point as he's humiliated and eventually humbled by circumstances always beyond his ability to predict, control or overcome. Truly a fall from a great height. In a penultimate twist he's drugged and buried in an old cemetery in Mexico -- a beautifully shot scene among many -- forced to sell his father's heirloom watch to get back across the border and reduced to a bedraggled, beaten pilgrim on a crowded bus heading northward; not much separating him from everyone else around him. A woman rests her head on his shoulder, sleeping. Not something we'd expect from this formerly rich financier. He has to beg for a ride to San Francisco in a roadside diner. When he gets there he admits his faults to his former wife who still obviously loves and forgives him although she's remarried. Some subtle and not so subtle signs of death and rebirth for the character.
But he's still enmeshed in the game, even though he thinks he's got the upper hand and a loaded gun in it and is about to pull back the curtain to "see the wizard" at CRS.
So, on the rooftop when, in his panicked paranoia he shoots his brother Conrad, he reacts in the only way he can. The question of nature/nurture, the theme woven into this movie from the opening credits -- is it genetic or incredibly seductive and powerfully strong patterned behaviour? -- comes to the surface for Nicholas Van Orten. The point of the game was to break him after all, wasn't it? To force him to this moment. It's what Life often does to us, finds those deep fault lines and drives in a wedge with relentless blows like CRS had done. Sometimes you have to live through your worst nightmare, to submit to or be dragged through your deepest fear in order to transcend it. But does he live? Shattered to the core he steps up onto the ledge and falls . . . . . .and lands on a huge air mattress in the midst of some Great Banquet: another Christian image. (Did anyone else notice that Conrad had an exit wound in his back from the gunshot when he hugged his broken and stunned brother?) So what's "real" or intended here? There's the dark guy with the beard from the airport who has the contract and awaits their signatures: the dark Trickster, that instrumental angel.
The Game is stunningly realized from the superb acting of the entire cast and the deliberate and sure directing of David Fincher to the haunting score, dark, beautifully foreboding cinematography, the shifting levels of chicanery and the bits of sardonic humor: the CRS psych interrogator holding up the cartoon picture of a car sailing off a cliff and Van Orten saying in annoyed deadpan "Oops." Van Orten, in silhouette, silently thrashing the briefcase he couldn't open!
"Off to shear some more sheep!"