"Fight Club" Is it worth the watch?

I was excited to watch “Fight Club”. I always wanted to watch it but I have continuously missed it when it was streaming. I saw it on Hulu and IMMEDIATELY changed my movie schedule around it. It wasn’t a hard sell though. I was planning on watching “2001: A Space Odyssey”. I don’t think I’m necessarily ready to start watching Stanley Kubrick films. I’m getting distracted. We’re talking about “Fight Club”. Y’all should know that I have NOT read the book. I know. I know. I just didn’t get around to it before I watched the movie. This review will not evaluate if the movie sticks to the source material. Wanted to be upfront and honest with y’all. Light spoilers ahead!  

The movie follows the Narrator played by Edward Norton. He most recently played Pete Seeger in “A Complete Unknown”. The Narrator is this guy who works at a basic white-collar job. He’s working for a boss who could care less about him, and he is devastatingly lonely. I mean so lonely that he pretends he has all these different dire ailments so he can go to various support groups. He meets this girl who’s doing essentially the exact same thing as him: Marla. He HATES that she’s there. He wants to be the only pretender in the room. Ya, it’s weird. He really needs help. Instead, he meets this guy Tyler who helps him create his own men’sloneliness support group - Fight Club. 

Tyler is everything that the Narrator wants to be. Cool. Charming. Confident. Tyler also lacks impulse control. The Narrator and Tyler are like chaos agents. The difference between the two is the Narrator knows when to stop. The sets and costumes commit to the 90’s grunge aesthetic. LOVE. The costumes are true to the nature of the characters. My favorite costume was Tyler’s bathrobe. SO COOL. A lavender robe with giant colorful coffee mugs all over it. FUN. It shows Tyler’s carefree nature. He doesn’t feel the need to fit into any kind of stereotype or whatever. He likes it, so he wears it. He sees something he wants, so he goes for it. Like I said. Confident with no impulse control. At one point, Tyler quotes a line from “Forrest Gump”. It’s fun to learn that the Tom Hanks classic exists in this universe. Brad Pitt was phenomenal in this role. It’s hard to toe the line between crazy and charming, but he did it with ease. Tyler shouldn’t be likable, but Pitt made him irresistible. 

I’m glad I watched “Memento” first because they are a little bit alike. If you’d like to read my review of that check it out here. No pressure! But also. Check it out. Have you heard of the male loneliness epidemic? In short, it’s this idea that men are lonelier than ever and are more vulnerable to extremist beliefs. If you want a more thorough breakdown feel free to check out this NPR podcast episode, LA Times article, or this Times article. I’m not going to act like I’m an expert on it, but this movie is a great representation of the idea. The Narrator is lonely. Out of his loneliness, he and his only friend start a fight club FOR COMMUNITY. Let that sink in. They start a FIGHT club, where all these guys are LINING up to beat each other up to feel a sense of community. The narrator didn’t need a fight club. He needed a therapist. Instead, he chose to start a violent cult. Go figure. 

Oh, I forgot to mention! This movie is rated R. It obviously has graphic violence. Check out a better content breakdown here. The style of the movie was SICK. It makes sense that it is a cult classic, and I’m not surprised that this movie is highly rated. The concept is unreal. People will do anything to feel seen and known. It’s addictive. Feeling known. Feeling understood. It's a basic need. The Narrator was at such a low point, even being halfway beaten to death by friends, was better than being alone. “Nothing was solved, but nothing mattered.” These guys weren’t looking to save the world, they were searching for any kind of meaning. I feel like I barely scratched the surface of this movie. We didn’t even talk about the soap plot. 

I had to sit with this movie for a couple of days to really understand the ins and outs of it. Honestly, if you're going to watch it, I would commit to watching it at least twice. My initial reaction after watching it for the first time was simple: I didn’t think it was worth the watch. A couple of days later, I thought maybe it could be worth it. This movie shows that loneliness is not just a simple feeling. It can open a dangerous door. If you don’t know what to watch, ok this could be a good fit for movie night. It has a great twist. I’ll give it that. This movie should be paired with a cool beveragino and greasy takeout. Happy watching! 

Photo from IMDb