Well, it feels like everyone who has seen Fight Club has broken the first two rules of Fight Club, which are “do not talk about Fight Club.” However, it’s one of the best movies of the ‘90s and a classic in David Fincher’s filmography, so it’s hard not to break them. So, for years, I’ve avoided the film because I knew the admittedly mind-blowing plot twist.
However, I decided to give it a shot recently, even though I knew the biggest surprise about it, and I’m thrilled to report that I was still very shocked by this movie.
Fight Club And I Are The Same Age, And I Couldn’t Avoid The Spoilers
Edward Norton and Brad Pitt film has been around and talked about. Therefore, as a film enthusiast-turned-entertainment-journalist, I couldn’t avoid its biggest spoiler and one of the best plot twists ever.
Pitt’s best movies, and it felt like not giving it a chance was a disgrace. So, I decided to give it a watch with my HBO Max subscription, and by golly, did it surprise me.
Fight Club had been misunderstood by many when I sat down to watch it, and I knew it was a satire of sorts. That became abundantly clear when Project Mayhem came into the picture. It took the extremes of this movie to a whole new level, and it highlighted how these men had resorted to violent actions because they couldn’t cope with their lives in a healthy and productive way.
Overall, it was a fascinating, disturbing and surprising examination of toxic masculinity through a very extreme and jarring plotline that I didn’t see coming at all.
The Ending, Where He Shoots Himself And Kills Imaginary Tyler But Not Himself, Surprised Me
If you don’t know what’s coming with Fight Club, the scene where it’s revealed that the Narrator and Tyler are one and the same is by far the most unexpected part of the movie. However, if you know that’s going to happen without knowledge of anything else (which was my case), I’d say that the moment where Norton’s character essentially kills Pitt’s character is the biggest shocker.
Now, here’s what I saw: the Narrator got into a battle with Tyler, and then shot himself. We see the bullet go through the back of Tyler’s head, and the Narrator manages to survive, seemingly by shooting the gun in a way that made it so the bullet missed his brain. Then, the film ends with Marla and the Narrator standing hand-in-hand, looking out the window, watching the city explode.
It seems like the Narrator let Tyler go and banished that part of himself from his mind. Then, he faced the inevitable by watching the buildings explode, and he was forced to take in the consequences of his actions.
However, I also can’t shake how ambiguous this all was. Like, how did the Narrator survive? Can he actually kill a figment of his imagination? What happened with his relationship with Marla?
All this and more has kept me thinking about the wild ride that is Fight Club, despite knowing the plot twist before I started watching it. So, in the end, I’m very happy I finally sat down to watch this 1999 classic, because even though I knew the biggest twist, I was still very, very surprised by it.