It’s been a week since I watched Fight Club, and I’m still not sure exactly what to make of it. Obviously I had heard all the pop culture references to the movie, and I knew it was popular. I was expecting a thrilling blockbuster similar to The Matrix, but Fight Club was something entirely different. I felt uncomfortable throughout almost entirely the entire movie. When fights were shown, I wanted to look away. I felt horrified when Tyler pointed a gun at the shopkeeper in order to get him to pursue his dream. Even at the end of the film, when the protagonist defeats Tyler Durden, instead of feeling release and relief, I only felt sickness from the bullet wound in his face.

I’m guessing the emotions that I felt are intended. The purpose was to get me to understand something about masculinity or violence or something like that. And I guess I did feel a bit of resentment towards Durden’s values. But the point seemed forced. The big reveal at the end was that the narrator was Durden all along. Seriously? Talk about an underwhelming deus ex machina. It was almost as bad as the “it was all a dream” cliche. In the end, I didn’t have any big epiphany about human existence. I didn’t particularly enjoy the film. I just walked dazedly to my dorm room and sat in the dark for a minute just trying to figure out what the hell I had just watched.