The Class of 1999: 'Fight Club'
David Fincher's controversial fourth film remains scarily relevant.
1999 was a historically great year for film and dramatic narrative as a whole. I’m using my 2024 to look back at, reconsider, and celebrate these stories as they all celebrate their 25th anniversaries. I recently re-reviewed Three Kings; next up… it’s time for…
Fight Club - directed by David Fincher - written by Jim Uhls - October 15, 1999
The first rule of talking about Fight Club is, it’s difficult to talk about Fight Club.
That’s because David Fincher’s fourth feature was a box office failure which was badly misinterpreted by reviewers and went on to become an iconic film that was badly misinterpreted by fanboys. Fight Club was decried by critics who mistook representation for endorsement and thus worried that it would inspire violence: Roger Ebert called the picture “cheerfully fascist,” and both Newsweek and Entertainment Weekly argued that it tacitly advocates for Nazism. This was a colossal misreading, as explained by Janet Maslin:
“Like Kevin Smith's Dogma, Fight Club sounds offensive from afar. If watched sufficiently mindlessly, it might be mistaken for a dangerous endorsement of totalitarian tactics and super-violent nihilism in an all-out assault on society. But this is a much less gruesome film than Seven and a notably more serious one. It means to explore the lure of violence in an even more dangerously regimented, dehumanized culture. That's a hard thing to illustrate this powerfully without, so to speak, stepping on a few toes.”
Critics like Maslin, who understood that Fight Club was a satirical condemnation of fascism and NOT an endorsement of fascism, were, of course, the “correct” ones who “got” the movie.
But even if Ebert et al. were incorrect about Fincher’s intentions, they weren’t necessarily wrong about the results. I was 17 when Fight Club came out, and just about a month after its release, I walked into a party of my peers, where I found a couple of dozen shirtless young men standing in a circle and cheering as they took turns wailing on one another.
In the years that followed, images of Tyler Durden, the ally-turned-antagonist portrayed by Brad Pitt, adorned head shop t-shirts and dorm room walls as commonly as other bafflingly misunderstood cinematic gonifs like Alex DeLarge, Travis Bickle, and Tony Montana. It doesn’t seem like a stretch to imagine that the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6 thought of themselves as Durden-esque disruptors. After all: Tyler Durden would 1,000% approve of overthrowing the government.
Based on an equally-provocative novel by Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club is about an unnamed, white-collar Narrator (Edward Norton), who suffers from chronic insomnia brought on by an almost existential sense of inner emptiness. His job involves determining whether or not it’s more cost-efficient for a major car company to recall vehicles it knows to be unsafe or pay out post-accident settlements; he carries out this soul-deadening task in the name of funding his consumer-driven lifestyle, which revolves largely around buying generic, IKEA-esque furniture.
Desperate for sleep, the Narrator eventually finds a cure for his insomnia by pretending he has various severe, potentially fatal illnesses (e.g., cancer, blood parasites, sickle cell, etc.) and attending those illnesses’ corresponding support groups. Faced with those suffering from actual problems (as opposed to, say, which coffee table to purchase), he finds that he’s able to cry, and that this emotional release allows him to sleep. For a little while, all is right in the world.
Unfortunately for the Narrator, another “tourist” starts showing up at all his support groups: Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), a thieving, perpetually-smoking, highly sarcastic Goth’s wet dream come to life (not for nothing did Bonham Carter go on to be with Tim Burton for many years). Marla’s very presence at these meetings is disruptive for the Narrator, because, as he puts it, “her lie reflected my lie.” He can no longer weep openly at these meetings, and as a result, he is once again unable to sleep.
The Narrator finally confronts Marla and agrees to divvy up the support groups so they can each attend without ever seeing one another, like divorced parents working out a custody schedule.
Not long after, while on a business trip, the Narrator meets Tyler Durden, who dresses like a rock star but has the relatively boring-sounding profession of making and selling high-end soap.
Tyler is charismatic and has a brazenly cynical, anti-consumerist worldview that appeals to the Narrator… so when the Narrator gets home from his business trip and finds that an inexplicable explosion has destroyed his apartment, Tyler is the dude he calls to go have some commiserative beers at a local bar.
At said bar, Tyler and the Narrator continue to discuss the emptiness of consumerism, and eventually, Tyler makes the Narrator an unusual offer: he can crash at Tyler’s place so long as the Narrator hits him first. The Narrator is initially reluctant to do so, and doesn’t even quite understand why Tyler would want such a thing (to which Tyler infamously responds, “How much can you know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight?”). So the Narrator punches Tyler, who, in turn, punches the Narrator back; and to the Narrator’s surprise, the ensuing fistfight winds up being as cathartic for him as the support groups.
So the Narrator moves into Tyler’s home, a decrepit, disgusting squat that exemplifies Tyler’s views on materialism. The new friends soon form an underground fight club (thus the title of the movie), where men (and only men) can gather to beat the shit out of one another, thereby venting the rage they feel as a result of leading such pointless, capitalist lives. Organized around a set of now-iconic rules (e.g., "The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club"), Fight Club quickly begins to grow in popularity.
The severity of Tyler’s philosophy, meanwhile, grows at a commensurate rate; consequently, Fight Club evolves into Project Mayhem a militant that aims to disrupt contemporary capitalist society via acts of vandalism, sabotage, and anarchy. The Narrator is initially onboard with Tyler’s plans, but becomes visibly more disturbed by them as Project Mayhem becomes increasingly violent.
Also disturbing the Narrator: Tyler begins a sexual relationship with Marla Singer. The Narrator claims not to care, but he’s clearly jealous… although who he’s jealous of isn’t entirely clear. In any case, the Narrator finds himself in the position of a child of divorce, constantly having to serve as an intermediary between the two. Marla’s behavior towards the Narrator, meanwhile, becomes increasingly odd, to the point where it’s as unclear how she really feels about him as it is how he really feels about her.
By this point, Project Mayhem has morphed into what is ostensibly a terrorist organization. The Narrator’s final breaking point comes when one of Tyler’s devotees, Bob (Meat Loaf Aday), is shot and killed while carrying out one of Project Mayhem’s “homework assignments.”
The Narrator decides he has to stop Tyler from taking Project Mayhem any further, and makes a shocking revelation: Tyler Durden is not real… in fact, the Narrator is Tyler Durden, an alter ego born of his repressed rage, desire, and dissatisfaction.
The Narrator soon learns of Project Mayhem’s final plan: they’re going to blow up a bunch of buildings that house credit card companies, thereby erasing all credit card debt (this was before cloud computing was commonplace, obviously) and creating financial anarchy. The Narrator attempts to stop Tyler, confronting him in an abandoned building, but since he is Tyler, he just winds up beating the shit out of himself. He finally resorts to shooting himself in the mouth, reclaiming control of his mind by symbolically killing Tyler.
Unfortunately, even though Tyler has been defeated, his plan is already in motion: in the final scene, the Narrator, badly injured but still alive, holds Marla’s hand as they watch buildings across the city explode. The death of Tyler Durden, it seems, does not mean the death of Project Mayhem.
Like so many Scorsese pictures (or, more recently, Todd Philips’ Joker), Fight Club’s “problem,” for lack of a better word, is that it does such a good job of illustrating how someone might be seduced by evil that evil people naturally saw it as seductive. Even in its darkest moments, Fight Club is extremely funny and fast-paced; Fincher cut his teeth directing music videos and commercials, which is readily apparent in Fight Club’s slick visuals, snappy editing, and adrenaline-fueled score by the Dust Brothers (a producing duo famous for their work with acts like the Beastie Boys, Beck, the Rolling Stones, and, uh, Hanson).
Further muddying the waters is that Tyler’s initial arguments are not without merit. This is another thing people seem to have difficulty understanding: two things can be true at once. Tyler’s philosophical stances on capitalism and materialism carry a lot of weight (especially given Pitt’s overwhelming level of charisma - which is the reason you cast him in this role to begin with). That’s why those assertions resonate with both characters in and viewers of the movie. But that doesn’t mean his conclusion - that society should be torn asunder by absolute anarchy - is correct. When Tyler turns out to be the “bad guy,” Fincher isn’t going back on all the droll and insightful observations Tyler made about young American men and consumer culture circa the turn of the century… but that doesn’t mean he’s arguing for terrorism as the solution.
The actual solution for which Fincher is arguing, corny and un-Fincher-like as it may seem, is a human connection (Fight Club, like The Matrix and Office Space, draws a direct line between capitalism, isolation, and emotional dysfunction). When the Narrator first confronts Marla about going to the support groups, it becomes immediately clear that despite their different lifestyles (e.g., the Narrator is on the straight-and-narrow, Marla is a thief), they have a lot in common. The argument almost plays out like a meet-cute. From the screenplay (credited to Jim Uhls but not-so-secretly co-written by Se7en scribe Andrew Kevin Walker):
That this whole conversation is about “being exposed”… that the Support Group Leader urges Marla and the Narrator to “Share with each other” immediately after they’ve had a moment of “recognition between them”… these aren’t coincidences. The Narrator’s need for emotional catharsis and some sense of fulfillment beyond retail therapy could very well be found in his relationship with Marla (especially given that, as the movie goes on, it becomes clear that Marla actually cares for him - he’s not just a fuck buddy).
But the Narrator isn’t capable of making a real connection - at least not with a woman. The closest thing to feminine energy that he can allow into his life is the embrace of Bob, a former bodybuilder who, as a result of testicular cancer, now has several physical attributes of a woman (i.e., his lack of testicles and non-lack of “bitch tits”).
The Narrator rejects Marla out of hand, describing her with distancing language that is either explicitly sexist (e.g., “That little bitch”) or reminiscent of a little boy who doesn’t want to play with girls (e.g., “She ruined everything,” “This chick did not have testicular cancer,” etc.). So he retreats into his own narcissism, conjures the idealized Tyler as a kind of armor, and builds a he-man woman-haters club (“I found a new support group. One that’s just for men!” he tells Marla). Tyler, the Narrator’s id, is toxic masculinity personified, and thus amplifies the Narrator’s thinly-veiled misogyny, declaring, “We’re a generation of men raised by women. I'm wondering if another woman is the answer we really need.” He might fuck Marla, but he’s in no danger of falling in love with her.
Put another way…
The Narrator is obsessed with capitalism, which not only cannot fulfill his needs, but obfuscates those needs to such a degree that he doesn’t even recognize them; as a result, he sublimates all of his psychological misery into something that is dangerously destructive to himself and others.
This is the reason Fight Club still feels relevant 25 years after its release: this level of emotional and psychological mishegoss is what fuels contemporary right-wing extremist groups. Tyler’s acolytes (they’re called “Space Monkeys” in the novel) are a half-stepped removed from the MAGA horde, the Proud Boys, incels (even if Tyler is anything but celibate), and whatever other cretins are lurking around 4chan or 8chan or whatever platform the cretins are using today. Our modern caste system fuels dissatisfaction and discourages self-awareness, so we wind up with scores of people who are incredibly angry but have only the vaguest notion as to why. Maybe the first rule of Fight Club should have been, “You all have to go to therapy.”