----- Fight Club [R]
A Film By David Fincher Screenplay by Jim Uhls (based on Chuck Palahniuk's novel) Starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf, Jared Leto
Review by Matt Lotti Rating: **** out of **** -----
Ah, how I love controversy! Not since the release of Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" this summer have critics disagreed so much over one film. At the theater in which I viewed the movie, several people walked out after the scene in which one of the characters burns his hand with a chemical, more left after one of the more grisly fight scenes, and by the end of the film, it was me and about five other people. Being the snoop I am I overheard the conversation of one of the couples walking out at the very end. "Hon," the one woman said, "next time, I pick the movie." "Sorry about that," the man replied.
But I wasn't sorry I saw it. In fact, I was quite glad. "Fight Club" is one of the most flashy, original, hard-to-watch, mind-melting films I've seen in a while. Fincher, whose previous works include "Seven" and "Alien3" (which I thought was tolerable, others disagreed) has made a cult classic that challenges you intellectually, while visually astounding you. Unlike a lot of the other action films Hollywood regurgitates and spits out at you, "Fight Club" actually has a pulse ... inside, it's alive.
The story revolves around Jack, played by Edward Norton, as he trudges through his miserable life. Like Patrick Bateman in Bret Easton Ellis' "American Psycho," he is obsessed with purchasing expensive furniture and exercise equipment for his apartment. He suffers from insomnia, and goes to his physician for some sleeping pills. The physician refuses, and tells him that he's not really suffering - the men who have testicular cancer (and go to group meetings to deal with the after effects of the disease) are the ones who are suffering. So, to make himself feel better, he goes to a group meeting, pretends to have cancer, meets a large man with breasts (due to hormone therapy) played by Meat Loaf, and, for the first time in a long time, cries. This crying is a panacea for him, and after the meeting he goes home and sleeps comfortably. Before you know it, he is addicted to self-help meetings.
It is here that he meets a kindred spirit, played by Helena Bonham Carter (very convincing in her trash-whore role), who is also addicted to self-help meetings. Her presence at these meetings disrupts him, because she, like he, is actually quite healthy and "faking" her illnesses (since she seems to be suicidal throughout the film, it can be assumed that these groups give her a reason to live even though she claims she only goes to them for the "free coffee"). Jack claims that the presence of another "faker" at these meetings bothers him, and his sleeping problems are resurfacing.
Another presence makes himself known to Jack, only this time it's in the form of the grungy, testosterone-filled Tyler Derden (Brad Pitt), who makes and sells soap. A series of events occurs in Jack's life and he and Tyler start living together, become friends, and create Fight Club, where men (and only men) meet and exorcise their homosexual demons by beating each other senseless.
To reveal more of the plot would be wrong of me, because the film gets wonderfully weird and while the twists taken may be considered (by some) as being far-fetched, I view them as being symbolic of the male psyche. What's more "spirit crushing" (to use "Trainspotting" terminology) than being forced to sit in a cubicle all day, typing meaningless numbers into meaningless machines? Why are we forced to put up with dull, emotionless bosses who revel in wearing (gasp!) cornflower blue ties on Wednesdays "for kicks?" There are ways we can escape, however. Some of them are healthy, some of them not so.
That's the film's warning. Tyler Derden's quasi-Hitler approach to the world is fascist, yes, but then again, Tyler Derden isn't exactly the film's hero, now is he? The message of the film is to avoid going that far, because the potential to go that far is inside all of us (the symbolism brings Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" to mind). If anything, the movie is anti-God (to agree with Alexander Walker) in the way that the characters abuse and intentionally disfigure their bodies. This self-mutilation reminds me of "Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist" and Flanagan's getting "back at" God for torturing him with cystic fibrosis. But Jack and Tyler don't have any major diseases - they aren't suffering from physical death, but from an existential death.
Fincher has said that this is supposed to be a comedy, and there are some funny parts that will appeal to those with a dark sense of humor. The ending can best be described as tongue-in-cheek, and I chuckled at exactly how dark things had become. I think how you view the film will depend on your own ideology and how well you accept the "twist" at the end (these "twists" are one of Fincher's trademarks).
Ignore what you hear from David Denby, Lisa Schwartzbaum or Roger Ebert (who is notorious for misjudging films of this nature) and watch the film for yourself. Is it trash? Is it subversive? Does it praise violence or show how destructive and detrimental it is to society? No matter how you look at it, there's no denying that Fincher is genuinely talented. And, like Kubrick, he knows just how to push everyone's buttons.
e-mail: m@sm.to
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