Ridin' the game out

Rating: 8/10 (11 May 2013)

Michael Douglas is Nicholas Van Orton, a wealthy investment banker, living a somber, lonesome life in a luxurious mansion that is only inhabited by himself after his divorce. He has become miserable and decidedly unfulfilled lately, but begins to walk down a path of, well, let's say excitement when, on his forty-eight birthday, his brother Conrad (Sean Penn) informs him about a group called Consumer Recreation Services (CRS). CRS specializes in something called "the game," which Conrad leaves highly ambiguous, only providing the vague details that Nicholas must try it and leaving him with the encompassing notion that it will change his life.
After delaying his visit to the company, to apply for "the game," he undergoes a series of exhausting and lengthy psychological and physical examinations to, allegedly, show his fitness for the exercise. Later that week, he is told his application is rejected, oblivious to the fact that "the game" itself has already begun. He discovers this one night when his TV begins talking directly to him, informing him about a series of keys that will come in handy at one point or another. What unfolds is a virtual video game, so to speak, with Nicholas himself, and the viewers of the film, questioning what is real and what is fictitious.
Films like David Fincher's The Game provide us with a unique, viable luxury, which is knowing about as much, or sometimes less, as the main character. In this case, we spend most of the film as confused as Nicholas, lost and wandering in the limitless, sometimes unknowable forces of reality. Writing about The Game, or even talking about The Game to someone who hasn't seen it, just doesn't work in retrospect. The aesthetics and plot developments can only be described so thoroughly before they channel lunacy and incomprehensible nonsense. Even seeing the film seems to have the same effect. This is truly a work that exercises in the unexplainable field of cinema and does it great justice.
Coming off of Fincher's acclaimed film Se7en, which has gone criminally unseen by me, to follow up with a film like The Game would logically generate mixed reception. The tone it holds is dark and heavy, accompanied by imagery and visuals that are bleak and replicate the look of film noir, and the story is non-linear and possesses a fondness to trick viewers and critics of it. This is a film that likes to play with your emotions and toy with your head as you watch it. Depending on how much of that you can stomach (for me, a film can only do so much of that before I stop caring and see through its roots of being a convoluted mish-mash of storytelling devices), this may be satisfying and wholly substantial. It does what a film of its magnitude should do and that is provide its story and approach with equal opportunities of commentary and explanation. I think I've got one.
"The Game" in itself is something that is used for those who want to add energy, excitement, and thrill to their lives. It's a device created for those who have yet to "live" or enjoy life on its own terms. It exists to show its players a good time, and even when they're struggling or beyond scared, it is still the most fun and excitement they've had in years.
Take the above explanation in any way you see fit, and add it to as it doesn't even seem to cover the entire span of open-endedness this film has in store. While The Game lacks in emotional character involvement and, towards the end, becomes rather redundant and plodding, it succeeds in developing a frightening and eerie utopia that, while giving its participants satisfaction and adventure, provides them with a scarring, indelible mark. Take that however you want as well.
Starring: Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, and Deborah Kara Unger. Directed by: David Fincher.