Fight Club: An Exploration Of The Adult Juvenile
Made in 1999, Fight Club didn’t make the kind of splash it was supposed to at the time. But according to Edward Norton during a student conference at Oxford University, Brad Pitt was of the opinion that the movie the pair had just made would surely have some impact on Cinema. But let me not take words out of Edward Norton’s mouth and instead lay the exact phrasing here when talking about the film.
“He turned to me in the dark… he turned to me in the dark and said that’s the best film we’ll ever be in.”
Edward Norton here was referring to Brad Pitt when they had just watched a screening of Fight Club. While the movie was creatively satisfying, Fight Club turned out to be a massive flop. And it was only over time that it grew to be one of the best films in American film history.
Based on the 1996 novel written by Chuck Palahniuk, this film speaks for a lost generation — millennials in particular — caught up in a rapidly moving world of consumerism and all the problems that come with it. When the same sort of lifestyle covered a newer generation called Genz’s, Fight Club gained a new audience which related to it.
The plot of Fight Club is simple enough. It is the story of an unnamed protagonist who forms a fight club with Tyler Durden, a flamboyant, muscular playboy who leads with confidence.
The main character goes about a daily routine that is, for all appearances, just plain boring. He works a desk job that requires him to fly out occasionally. Racked with Insomnia and after failing to get medication from a doctor, he explores various self-help groups looking for some relief.
He finally settles into a self-help group that suffers from testicular cancer and finds comfort crying in the arms of Robert Paulsen, a failed bodybuilder who lost his testicles from excessive steroid use.
The main character also joins a bunch of other groups, presumably to get more support for a life that seems to be going nowhere. His sense of peace is disturbed when a woman by the name of Marla Singer decides to attend all the meetings he is attending. He is now confronted with a dilemma: does he shoo her away from groups where even he pretends to be ill for the feeling of being included in a group? Or does he allow her into the same space, ruining his own experience. Finally, he confronts her and the two of them agree to split the self-help groups between them.
While on one of his flights, the main character meets Tyler Durden, a soap salesman with an interesting stance on life. The two exchange numbers and get to know more about each other. Tyler Durden’s card comes in handy later when his apartment building burns down. Tyler Durden offers him a place and he accepts but not before they break into a fight which Tyler Durden starts by asking to be punched.
Tyler Durden’s place is a rundown shack of a home where nothing works. Slowly, Tyler Durden starts to feed the main character his philosophy of life which is completely nihilistic and at some points verges into toxic advice.
But it represents the feelings of an era which still exists today perhaps in the form of Andrew Tate.
Slowly but surely, Tyler Durden’s way of thinking infects the main character. Soon, we see the formation of a fight club where disaffected low individuals can come and experience catharsis from the stress of everyday living by fighting in the basements of hotels, seedy bars, and other businesses. During this period, Tyler Durden gets into a physical affair with Marla Singer
Tyler Durden sinks deeper and deeper into the world of crime, transforming his fight club into a group that participates in destructive acts around the city under a flagship initiative called project mayhem. Tensions build between the main character and Tyler Durden until one day, Tyler Durden crashes the two of them along with some accomplices into another car through sheer neglect.
Tyler Durden leaves the main character on a hospital bed and finally leaves for good. Finally, after tracking down Tyler Durden after looking through various cities and hotels, the main character finds out that actually he is Tyler Durden and that he has been playing a double role this whole time. The stronger, toxic and more pessimistic Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt) was actually just a character he formed in his head to cope with the reality of middle-class life.
The imaginary Tyler Durden goes missing again. The actual Tyler Durden tracks him down again this time in a building wired up with bombs. As part of project Mayhem, the darker side of Tyler Durden wired multiple bombs in the city. Luckily, the actual Tyler Durden manages to defuse the bomb of the building he is in. The two Tyler Durdens begun to fight violently before the real Tyler Durden shoots himself in the mouth, sucessfully killing the imaginary Tyler Durden.
Members of the fight club find the actual Tyler Durden with his mouth blown half open. They bring in Marla Singer who was kidnapped under direction of Project Mayhem. Tyler Durden and Marla Singer hold hands while they watch the rest of the bombs go off.
Final Review
Fight Club is a true cult classic and arguably one of the most striking films over the last 20+ years in terms of cinematography, acting, and storytelling. Especially if you’re in your 20s and struggling to get through life. It points out the negative outlook on life that young adults, especially men are prone to develop when nothing seems clear in their life. In times where prominent influencers like Andrew Tate are propagating a tougher outlook on life, a movie like Fight Club has never been more relevant than it is now.
