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Ever heard of Tyler Durden? "He had a plan". "No fear, no distractions". "In Tyler we trusted". This could quite possibly be the most highly consummate movie on the millennium edge. Near perfect in accomplishing the battering of every barrier it intends to shatter, this film, which many will undoubtedly erroneously find to be destructive in its force, hides a more comprehensive and realistic view of modern life than usually available on the contemporary screen. A magnificent interpretation of a powerful script under the direction of an innate craftsman has created what is undoubtedly one of the closest things this side of 2KY to a flawless movie. It's difficult to do it justice without revealing a few of the crucial twists and turns that it takes the viewer through, and yet it would be unforgivable to reveal certain secrets that should only be discovered as you experience it. Therefore, grin and bear the following analysis without, at any time, mistakenly assuming that this movie is solely an "intellectual" piece. If this movie has anything, it has guts. (And often they're all over the ground.)
Flashback. The Narrator (Edward Norton) and main character of this story, leads a pleasant enough life working for an auto company where he investigates accidents. He must determine whether or not the costs attached to the recall of any model vehicle as the result of a design fault made by his company are considered reasonable when compared to the costs of paying off eventual liabilities on insurance policies. Life, in short, is cheap. He has an Ikea-catalogue-furnished apartment in a fashionable building in a fashionable part of town. All the condiments are stored neatly in their place. And yet he feels, without much feeling, that something is terribly wrong with this world. And his insomnia continues unchecked. In the daytime, he totters on the edge of exhaustion while his boss mechanically goes about performing daily chores as if he's "had his grand latté enema." Boredom and insensitivity have displaced and overshadowed our Narrator's earlier pleasures, he discovers, and whereas once "we used to read pornography, now we have the Horchow collection." Attending a session for testicular cancer patients, inadvertently suggested by his doctor, introduces him to a new phase. Although not being ill in the same way they are, he moves among them, fits in, and shares experiences as he informs us, "I didn't say anything. People always assume the worst." One evening, as he presses his head against the breasts of ex- bodybuilder and steroid victim Bob (Meat Loaf) the tears begin to flow and he discovers a new release. Routine had begun to make him feel like "a copy of a copy of a copy," a permanent resident of Planet Starbucks, and a member of the latté lifestyle. The image of his tears left on Bob's sweatshirt reminds one of the image left upon Veronica's cloth. "I found freedom, losing all hope was freedom." His sleeplessness is immediately cured: "Baby's don't sleep this well. I became addicted." From that point on, participating in various groups that suffer from one or another physical or mental problem becomes a new way of life. It would seem that our Narrator had found the missing element within his life, at least for a period of time, when he tells us, "Every evening I died and every evening I was born again." Or so it seems, until Marla Singer turns up. Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) is a pale, punk piece of sweet business who is streetwise and hot to handle. She also begins attending several of the same sessions as the Narrator, which inevitably puts a cramp in his style. Yes, once Marla Singer has appeared on the scene, he can't sleep again. It seems they have both found the same special solution to their emptiness: he begins to explain to her that "when people think you're dying, they listen to you instead of ..," as she concludes his statement with "Instead of waiting for their turn to speak." In desperation, bothered by her presence, he tries to make a deal with Marla and convince her to split up the sessions with him. She, however, is not the only one around with whom he will be sharing words and thoughts. Soon we are introduced to the enchanting and magical charm of the sleazy, underclassed soap-salesman Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), who glides suddenly past our sleepless, near-delirious businessman in an opposite direction on the airport's people belt, only to wind up seated next to him on the plane. Although our Narrator's work might demand a simple enough task from him for this modern, economically orientated, hi-tech world, he is having severe difficulties contending with it. His consternation becomes more visible among his colleagues when he starts responding oddly to his boss's inquiries, dressing in rumpled clothing, appearing at the office regularly with his face split open, and attending management meetings sporting a mouthful of bloodied teeth. "If you wake up at a different time in a different place, would you be a different person?" Tyler reveals that the reason for oxygen masks on planes is because oxygen makes you high. That way, in an emergency, everyone will relax. He is an explosive character who knows full well what equal parts of gasoline and orange juice will do to a lifestyle. These flying companions seem to be a match made on another kind of level and so Tyler and he move in together. This doesn't happen, of course, until our businessman goes home to discover his apartment blown to smithereens and his yin-yang table twisted on the pavement below. Such losses would never bother Tyler, who knows that the wrong path is one where "thing's you own, end up owning you." The police investigate the explosion and decide that the stove's pilot light probably went out, filled the place with gas, and, finally, the refrigerator's mechanism clicking into action ignited everything. We visually follow the reenactment of this theory along the kitchen's neurological path up until the point of total destruction. (A number of visual FX supervisors have made a feast of such mind-boggling moments, and what a treat such moments are, time and again, throughout the film.) This imagined biomechanical path of nerves is curiously similar to the one seen previously during the opening titles. Following an evening at Lou's tavern, in the parking lot outside, life takes a different turn when Tyler asks his newfound friend to hit him as hard as he can (,as a playful father might ask his son). They punch each other until they're bloody and exhausted. This event immediately follows their agreement to share Tyler's living quarters. With typical foresight, Tyler already knows where they're heading. He has to break down the wall of inhibitions that his new buddy lives with. He confronts him, knowing he wants to crash at his place, by saying "3 pitchers of beer and you still can't ask." Tyler's philosophies always sound very basic: "Stop being perfect. Let's evolve." Tyler's digs consist of a derelict house with ruined walls and wood swelling with water. It is here, in the shadows of a corrupted existence, that our Narrator travels further into the darkness. He reads magazines where body parts are personified and begins to view the world in a parallel way. He often finds himself reflecting with the oddest self-imposed abstractions: "I am Jack's medulla oblongata." "I am Jack's cold sweat." "I am Jack's complete lack of surprise." "I am Jack's smirking revenge." "I am Jack's colon." To this last, Tyler humorously responds, "I am cancer. I kill Jack." When Tyler speaks the acid truth, he says succinctly, "It's only after we've lost everything, that we're free to do anything." The Narrator also realizes "I am Jack's wasted life." Will Jack fall down and break his crown? Marla reappears on the scene after an attempted suicide and frequently drifts in and out of this new household where she maintains her relationship with the Narrator while she and Tyler Durden are screwing each other into oblivion in all manner of shapes and forms with all sorts of accessories.
"In a long enough life line, the life expectancy for everyone drops to zero." The Narrator and Tyler have such an intensely close relationship that they seem indivisible. When the former reaches a moment where he thinks "I am Jack's inflamed sense of rejection" as a result of Tyler's lack of attention, he hungers to destroy something beautiful and does so quickly and violently, after which Tyler simply responds, "Where'd you go psycho, boy?" They are, without a doubt, as close as two people can be. But, as in many relationships, a harsh truth comes hurtling toward the Narrator when he ultimately realizes "I am alone. My father despised me. Tyler despised me" and he is finally faced with the reflection "I am Jack's broken heart." Tyler has a vision of a New World before him where everyone is equal. How he intends to achieve it and make it a reality, is a question that the movie will answer. An amazing portrait of anarchy for our time, in which the instrumental figure is the kind of guy who "goes around slicing sex organs into Cinderella."
While some can permit themselves the luxury of ignoring awkward confrontations with streetlife characters and other undesirable aspects of existence by keeping them locked outside the doors of their safe and secured homesteads, others are continuously bombarded by the images before their eyes and in their minds. Murder, crime, and poverty have not disappeared; they have only been pushed into a corner out of sight. Decreasing boundaries in this contemporary world transmit daily atrocities from outside. Denial no longer keeps everyone safe. Security is becoming a state of mind and not remaining a very dependable one. The ethical world is falling apart at the seams and nothing of value is replacing it. Is it any wonder that people are falling over the edge? "Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives." Some may have trouble with parallel realities presented in this elaborately constructed, derisive, decisive, divisive and diverse tale. Those who can see through the facade of created images and fantasies will realize, perhaps, that it is a parable of modern life and the saga of a man twisted and contorted by world that is contradictory to his existence. He survives too long in accordance with dictates and roles that he must fill and fulfill in order to keep on top. Only when he crawls to the bottom, does he manage to "feel" his own existence. Only when he creates his own golem can he blast the heap to hell and take control of it all. If the beast takes control completely, he will dissolve into a universe that he has been forced to take part in and would never recover himself. The movie, it seems, more an argument against hate, violence, and destruction than a movie containing gratuitous violence, as many, unfortunately, will undoubtedly believe. Director David Fincher has led a massively talented crew (DP Jeff Cronenweth, production designer Alex McDowell, film editor James Haygood, costume designer Michael Kaplan, make-up FX supervisor Rob Bottin, music supervisors Michael Simpson & John King and many, many more), and elicited stunning performances from every member of the cast to realize Jim Uhls' electrifying screenplay adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's best-selling novel. A movie astounding in its approach toward massive social issues which most people ignore, deny, and frequently do not recognize. It is embedded with an anarchistic sense that can be argued from several viewpoints. The astute mind will find a feast. Many others will enjoy it equally, but for other reasons. Coming from right, left or center, it is an experience not to be missed, whether or not it is especially to your liking; a fascinating, complex, and convex structure which can easily be viewed several times and offer new facets contributing to a further understanding. It grows on you. In an age filled with job dissatisfaction, unemployment, homelessness, abuse, depression, Prozac breakfasts, complacency, insensitivity, apathy, desires of revenge, lust for vengeance and retribution, is multiple personality disorder something out of the ordinary? In a world where ethics are inconceivable and faith is displaced, drugs can often become the opiate of the people; other things will do nicely too. Passively wandering around in such a world and suffering the damage done by unreasonable restraints is enough to get you out of touch with yourself. There is nothing to believe in because there is nothing to look forward to. Why let others bash your brains in, when you can you can take care of business yourself? At least, it gives one a heightened sense of responsibility. Politicians might look about themselves when standing in front of cameras, as if a stupor has fallen upon them, to quickly tell their constituents that things happen in today's world that are completely incomprehensible. Then the masses nod their heads in agreement and say that it must be true, if it's on TV.
And the beat goes on. Do you like yourself?
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A MUST SEE