Fight Club (1999) - Film Review

Starring: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter & Jared Leto

Screenplay: Jim Uhls

Directed By: David Fincher

Certificate: 18

 

Ordinarily, Fight Club is not the kind of film that appeals to me, nor would I watch it or review it. But in this case, I had little choice seeing as it's one of the films I had to study for my Film A-Level. After weeks of debating and discussing Fight Club in class, I soon learnt that there's little everyone can agree on, and it seemed for everything that worked, there was something that didn't. For the purposes of my exam alone, I've had to look at how the film explores themes such as commercialism, Nietzsche, fascism, the Fuhrer principle, misogyny and nihilism. Oh well this one's going to be a fun time isn't it?

 

Fight Club follows the journey of an unnamed narrator. Trapped by insomnia and a dull monotonous job, he tries to find comfort in putting together the “perfect” apartment. Seeking to reconnect with the world, he resorts to attending medical support groups. There he meets Marla Singer, a woman he is both attracted to and repelled by. One day, on a business trip, he meets the charming Tyler Durden, and upon his return home he finds his “perfect” condo has been destroyed. Looking for somewhere to stay, he turns to Tyler and is embroiled in Tyler's world of underground fight clubs.

 

Although I have very conflicting feelings about Fight Club, I'll be the first to admit that it got off to a great start largely thanks to its promising first act that launched a great, darkly comedic attack on commercialism. I may not share quite the same disdain that the film has for life's commercialization, but for as long as so many huge companies and banks continue to have ridiculous amounts of power and influence, it's something open to attack. Fight Club has little positive to say about companies such as IKEA or Starbucks, regarding them about as highly as I regard companies like Apple, but it says what it has to say in an effective way under the lens of dark comedy. It also can't be denied that the film features great performances all round, particularly from Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter. Edward Norton gets the chance to again show not just how fantastic he is as an actor, but also how much acting range he possesses. This is a very different role to his last appearance in American History X, but he's just as brilliant as the man trapped in a purposeless life and job, as he was as Derek the neo-Nazi in the aforementioned film. Helena Bonham Carter nails it as probably the darkest yet funniest character with Marla, and while Brad Pitt is likely to make more of an impression on someone far more macho than me, his performance is still dedicated and solid, and he's clearly having fun in the role.

 

While Fight Club may succeed in its takedown of an increasingly commercialized world, its exploration and approach to the theme of male emancipation by contrast comes across as mishandled, insensitive and mean-spirited. I can see what was probably intended, but approaching this particular topic with dark comedy just doesn't work. Fight Club makes a big deal about returning to the time where men were supposed to be hunter-gatherers (because things were SO much better back then...), and looks at apparently just how far we've been “feminised” by having the Narrator visit a testicular cancer support group. Here we meet many men who have been left abandoned and downtrodden, with the most notable being Bob (admittedly played really well by Meat Loaf), who literally has his testicles removed and has developed what the Narrator calls “bitch tits”. Now I've personally long believed that there has never been any feminisation of men, only that we've evolved and just grown up (though this change may have been quick and not all that easy for everyone). It's ironic that for all of the film's talk of enduring pain to evolve, it never seems to consider that evolution is what led us into the world it seems to hate. And besides, while things such as football, wrestling, boxing, rugby and many more exist in the world, you're never going to convince me that men don't have anywhere to release their testosterone-induced urges. The result is a film that appears to exploit men with testicular cancer or anyone who doesn't agree with Tyler's views to show how we've become “feminized”, which just feels juvenile and somewhat grotesque.

 

But it's worth making clear that I have little problem with Fight Club's use of graphic violence. The fights themselves may be brutal and explicit, but that's to be expected. Like nearly everything in the film, they're well realized and look great, helped even more by director David Fincher's fantastic visual style. Say what you will about Fight Club (keep reading and you'll see I will), but it at least looks great. Before watching the film, I'd only seen a bit of David Fincher's work (Alien 3 and a couple of music videos to be precise) and while the material he'd been working with in these was questionable, it at least looked brilliant. Making great use of cutting edge technology for the time, as well as getting very inventive and creative with camerawork, Fight Club is certainly a well-polished production. (Skip ahead now to the next paragraph to avoid spoilers!) The film isn't afraid to take risks narratively either, and there's a certain twist that happens about 2/3 of the way in that changes everything, where it's revealed that the Narrator and Tyler Durden are the same person. This is a brilliant twist and it works so well because it makes sense when re-watching the film, and it's something that you feel you should have already seen coming. Going back on a second viewing, you realize the sheer number of hints the film sent in our direction but that we never picked up on, and I think that's one of several things that makes the film so re-watchable and why it appears to have aged so well.

 

But as much as I love that twist, I wish it had come sooner in the film because as it stands, it does muddy the waters. With this twist, I started asking myself, what exactly does Fight Club want to be? Before the twist, the film could have been written off as simple macho porn, or as straight-up propaganda, but with the twist, it feels as though it wants to tell the story of a man who has developed severe psychological problems as a result of a directionless life. The latter can work, the others can't and the film never appears to make its mind up as to what it wants to be. Supporters of the film have shot down my criticisms of it by saying either that it's supposed to be a satire, or that I simply don't understand it. Well I'm sorry, but no that's not good enough. If it's a satire, and you're having to tell people it's a satire, then the film hasn't done its job right and hasn't made its intentions clear enough. If it is a satire, then Fight Club appears to have identified problems with modern society, proposed a solution to them through the actions of Tyler Durden, and then shot that solution down. So what was the point of all this? As for me just not understanding the film, I've spent more time trying to pick apart what this film is trying to say than nearly any other film I've watched. I agree that the audience should have to figure out some things or connect some dots for themselves, but the film has to meet you halfway, and if it's not providing you with enough, like Fight Club does, then there's little that can be done. If you really want proof to just how much Fight Club doesn't know what it wants to be, answer me this: How would you market this film? Market it to those who want to see stars like Brad Pitt and Edward Norton smash each other's faces in, and they'll be left disappointed by all the film's attempts at philosophy. Market it as something philosophical and you lose the violent thrill-ride appeal. I'm not sure how I'd even go about starting to promote Fight Club to friends, let alone a wider audience.

 

Something else that bugged me about Fight Club, and possibly the most unsettling thing about the film as a whole, is its attempts to justify Tyler's actions and be philosophical when it really isn't. Here, I know I'm not the only one to take issue with this, and Roger Ebert perhaps summed it up best by describing Fight Club as a “thrill-ride masquerading as philosophy”. The film is nihilistic to the core, and sometimes that works in its favour. Seeing Marla stand in the middle of a busy road and have a conversation whilst giving no regard to her own safety is a dark yet hilarious image. However, using that same nihilism to justify the fight clubs … no, that doesn't work. You have to be pretty cynical to believe in nothing or no-one at all, and you must also have to overlook the irony that belief in nothing is still a belief. Nihilism just isn't philosophy to me... it's just giving up and not trying. It undermines everything else Fight Club has to say that's worthwhile, and it just feels petty and an attempt to be artificially “cool” and edgy. By the time the fight club evolves into Project Mayhem, that's when I really start to feel uncomfortable. It's hard to watch the members of Project Mayhem, who were once consumerist slaves now turned actual slaves perform acts of blatant terrorism. Admittedly I do like the film's ending, but I'll be the first to admit that it can be quite unsettling now. Maybe it had a different effect on the audience in 1999, but in a post-9/11 world where reports of terrorist attacks can be found almost daily on the news, and we are aware of the devastating consequences terrorism brings, the last act of Fight Club is worrying and dangerous if nothing else.

 

Overall, I really doubt Fight Club and I are ever going to see eye to eye. I'm aware that my opinion of the film isn't the popular one right now, yet I fully understand why the film has attracted such a dedicated cult following. After all, it's incredibly well made, and the film's warnings about a world controlled by rampant consumerism and the empty lives that leads to, as well as touching on the harm psychological illness can bring, are still relevant to this day. But even so, the film's approaches to supposed male emancipation and feminisation (which in my opinion has never happened to the extent many would claim), not to mention its attempts to be philosophical and justify the acts of terrorism its main characters commit, don't do it many favours. A society that allows no room for self-improvement, emotion or acts of love is not one I'll ever be a part of. Now, this review has been longer than my usual ones for a film, but that's because there's so much to talk about and to debate. I'm also impressed with myself that I've managed to get this far without mentioning the "first rule". But because of that fierce debate that surrounds this film, I thought for a long time about going against my own rules and not marking it. But then I thought … no. No matter how much of a cult following Fight Club may have, no matter how deep or important many think it to be, and no matter how much I'm told I just don't get it … Fight Club is still a film. Films are subjective and everyone is entitled to their own opinions on them, so for me, Fight Club sits slap bang in the middle with a five.

Fight Club



5/10