Retrospective Film Review

Fight Club (1999) • 25 Years Later — killing God, burning America, and overcoming cosmic loneliness

An insomniac office worker and a devil-may-care soap maker form an underground fight club that evolves into much more.

Few films have left such an indelible imprint on popular culture as Fight Club. In depicting a society bereft of hope, a gritty civilisation still coping with the death of God, one could argue it permanently killed the American Dream. Capturing the zeitgeist of an angst-ridden public subconscious, a populace fearful of the new world that is slowly taking shape around them, Fight Club is the film that started a new millennium.

Our nameless Narrator (Edward Norton) hasn’t slept in six months. He works his white-collar job dispassionately, roaming the office like a mindless drone. Desensitised by modern society, he finds himself without purpose, excitement, or meaningful human connections. Then he meets Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), a self-destructive, but alluring young woman, and Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a soap…