Writer: Jim Uhls 

Director: David Fincher 

Released at the fag-end of the 20^th Century to critical indifference and a box office mauling worthy of the film itself, Fight Club has since gone onto achieve pre-eminence in the film canon and was even proclaimed the 10^th best film of all time by Empire in 2011. Its hyper-violent, nihilistic critique of modern consumer culture seems more relevant by the second. And its portrayal of masculinity, while in some sense problematic, pre-figured much of the modern-day discussions about the notion of toxicity and fragile male-ego.  

Directed by David Fincher and adapted by Jim Uhls from the 1996 novel by Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club is the story of the unnamed narrator’s (Edward Norton) journey from office-bound lackey to God-like cult leader. He begins the film as a white-collar smudge, a nothing person who spends their time slavishly buying the entire Ikea catalogue. As Norton walks through his apartment it ingeniously becomes a catalogue, prices and all. The film has a fluid post-modernity and Norton’s character narrates from voice-over to inside the film itself, at one point he literally stops a scene and moves the film on to another one. Norton’s narrator is an insomniac and find a deliciously black comic cure in attending support groups for people with terminal illnesses. But this only last so long before the neurotic, funeral-clad Marla Singer (Helena Bonham-Carter), a fellow faker, shows up and sends him spiralling back down to zero sleep. The film’s opening section hammers home that he is adrift; emotionally, intellectually and perhaps most of all spiritually, lost in the fug of a pointless life.  

Enter Brad Pitt’s sexy, dangerous and stylish Tyler Durden – a character at ease in a way Norton’s could only dream to be. After meeting on a plane (and recognising they have the same briefcase, which offers a neat clue to their true relationship) Norton’s narrator ends up living with Tyler after discovering his condo has burnt down. Their first fight is played for laughs, as Norton almost pathetically punches the ear of Durden (improvised by Norton and Fincher in the moment). But the pair soon discover that ritualised fighting is something that is deeply embedded in the male psyche, as men from all sections of society que in a darkened basement to batter each other’s bodies.  

When Tyler begins a relationship with Marla, the cracks in his friendship with the Narrator begin to show. The performances from the main cast are all excellent; Norton is exquisite as the everyday loser composing his own personal revolution, you feel the savagery of his unspoken rage. Pitt by contrast is the epitome of coo; a kind of underground philosopher complete with sardonic self-help phrases; ‘It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything,’ ‘You are the all-singing all-dancing crap of the world’. He seems to represent both the revolutionary destruction of capitalism and the collapse of a society based on gender domination. One of his most telling quotes is ‘We are generation of men raised by women. I’m wondering if another woman is the answer.’ Fight Club is at some level about the collapse of masculinity but rather alarmingly it seems to think that to resurrect it, we need to create communities solely of men. Helena Bonham Carter, who plays the only female character in the film to get more than one line, is again wonderful as the damaged Marla. With a pitch perfect accent, Carter brings real depth to a character struggling at all level with life. If Tyler and the Narrator allowed themselves as much vulnerability as Marla does, perhaps their lives would develop some genuine meaning. David Fincher’s direction is first class, and the film codified his break-neck style. The camera is constantly moving, creating a free-flowing but totally lucid dynamic. The film feels artificial, as all post-modern works do, but very much alive. There is a breathlessness, a sense that each frame will bring something new.  

There is a tragedy at the heart of Fight Club, the men of the film who join Tyler’s Project Mayhem, which grows out of the club they begin with, feel spiritually lost. Modern consumer society has created an endless parade of nameless, faceless hegemonic people devoid of any genuine agency. They follow Tyler because he recognises and sees fit to bring it down to a crumbling nothing. But, by joining Tyler’s army, they become exactly the same thing they left behind. Literally nameless, they wear the same uniform like the people who buy the same clothes from the same store. And their agency is once again gone, as they follow the orders of a mad nihilist without question. They think they have found meaning but they have simply replaced the false freedom of consumerism with a fake liberation that is just another form of control.  

Fight Club is a magnificent work; furious and funny and stunningly crafted. It’s discussions on masculinity are not working at the same level as its thoughts on consumerism and that make some of the violence very uncomfortable. It has perhaps the best ending to a film ever, as the glorious guitar of ‘Where is my Mind?’’ plays over collapsing buildings, the very last moment of the film is pure romance and is cinema at its most exhilarating.  

9.5/10