Fight Club (1999) Review

@giawatchedthat film reviews #1

SPOILER WARNING!!! 

Fight Club (1999)

Directed by: David Fincher

Starring: Edward Norton (<3), Brad Pitt, & Helena Bonham Carter

if you can't tell by my tyler durden profile picture, i might like this movie just a little bit. or... maybe more than just a little bit. maybe i just rewatched it for the 25th time (don't believe that number? check my letterboxd!) and yknow what? it feels fitting to have the first review i post to this blog be of my favorite movie of all time.

you'd expect a film that is both this popular and this beloved among some of the most insufferable dudes in the world to be nothing more than overrated slop with nothing to actually say besides "wow look at how cool these guys look, i wanna be just like them." and if you walk away from this movie still thinking that, what fight club did you watch? 

if i could compare fight club to one movie, american psycho immediately comes to mind. two movies where their main characters are critiques of the dangers of toxic masculinity. where the plot is so obviously making fun of said toxic masculinity. yet somehow, the joke goes right over part of the audience's heads. instead of laughing at its main characters, pitying them even, some guys (toxic, repressed, never been to a therapist in their life) base their entire personalities around them. funny how that happens, huh? 

(also, both fight club and american psycho were originally books written by gay guys, with pretty fucking blatant homoerotic themes. but don't tell the homophobic alpha males that.)

despite what that side of the fandom gets from fight club, to me it is a brilliant piece of satire. a commentary on consumerism, capitalism, once again toxic masculinity, mental health, among many other things. its easy for a movie like that to fuck those subjects up, but fight club doesn't.

i love the slow unraveling of the plot. the blink-and-youll-miss-it details scattered through the entire movie. things that you disregard on your first watch, and shout at the tv asking how you missed it on your second. the quick few flashes of tyler on the screen before he's even introduced, the sticker on the payphone that says "no incoming calls allowed" as it zooms into the phone ringing, the brilliant line of "for some reason i thought of my first fight with tyler" while narrator's punching himself in front of his boss. marla and narrator's entire dynamic (especially with all of her actions and dialogue towards him.) its so brilliantly crafted in a way i've never seen any movie come close to replicating.

speaking of marla, her character is simultaneously the most overlooked and most important of the whole movie. the fact that so many people disregard her is bizarre to me. she is a direct parallel of everything narrator hates about himself, which in turn, makes him hate marla and turn towards tyler (who is quite literally his ideal man.) the more he rejects tyler's dangerous ideas, the more he accepts both himself and marla, which makes the end of the movie so beautiful to me (i do like the book's ending more, but i get why they changed it. the movie's ending works perfectly for where they went with the story!)

one of my favorite little details in the movie is the parallel between the narrators' support groups and fight club. two coping mechanisms on separate sides of the same painfully unhealthy coin. instead of crying into a stranger's arms, you collide your fists with a stranger's face. hey, narrator? ever thought of therapy? it might do you good!

its hard to pick a favorite scene without mentioning the entire movie, so i've narrowed it down to 2 i really love. first and foremost being the car scene. i think that this one is especially important to me due to this scene not existing in the book. well. it did... kind of? just not nearly in the way it's presented in the movie. the way this scene is shot, the dialogue, god its just perfect. david fincher i owe you my LIFE.

my second favorite is the chemical burn scene. the only reason this isn't first is because i do prefer the way it's written in the book ever so slightly to how it's done in the movie. brad pitt is a pretty whatever actor to me, but this scene is quite literally the peak of his career. fuck him though, hes a child and wife abusing prick.

on the topic of performances, edward norton is also phenomenal in this movie. am i biased because he's my favorite actor ever and i think he's perfect in every movie he's done? maybe! but god, i can't imagine a single other person playing narrator. in both his quieter content seeming scenes and his more violent, deranged ones, edward plays each side of the narrator PERFECTLY. reminds me of an earlier movie in his career, Primal Fear (1996). totally recommend btw. shit i'm getting off topic

i mentioned this very briefly a few paragraphs ago, but GOD is this movie queercoded. everything from the hand kiss to the narrator and angel face fight scene (or more so, the scene leading up to it.) narrators jealous reaction to finding out tyler's fucking marla, I COULD GO ON! and if you think the movie's gay??? READ THE BOOK. IT'S TEN TIMES GAYER. THEY MEET ON A NUDE BEACH. i could honestly write an entire blog post just on this if yall want me to. #very passionate on the subject of gay fight club 

i have way more to say, but this post is getting long and i'm getting tired, so i'm gonna wrap it up. moral of the story i absolutely love this movie and i get it more than any filmbro ever could. go watch fight club. <3