Elsewhere, Edward Norton is snivelling perfection, and Helena Bonham Carter the most deliciously cynical of femme fatales. This is an angry, messy and incredibly funny dissection of white men in perma-adolescence, with Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden a fantasy pin-up for all of life’s unfortunates. It gets to the root of why this movie is so powerful, though. Let alone that many people will watch and embrace the very things being mocked or satirised. If a movie is to depict toxic masculinity, it must contend with discussion over whether it endorses it or not.
Still, Amanda Seyfried is divine as the sharp and daffy Marion Davies, and Fincher directs with characteristic zhush, monochrome fitting him like an immaculately pressed suit.Īccess unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Amazon Prime Video Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign upĮven before it became a Tumblr staple and the favourite movie of every basement-dwelling misogynist, it was impossible to separate Fight Club from the ideas that surrounded Fight Club. It means Mank is far more interesting to think about in the aftermath than it is to watch unfold before you. Because it feels so personal, both behind the camera and what it says about filmmaking and the Hollywood machine, we’re very much kept at a distance. Based on a script by Fincher’s late father, it uses the making of Citizen Kane as a starting point for a tale as celebrating of Hollywood’s contradictions as it is repulsed by them. It’s a cold, misanthropic endeavour, one that is steeped in a quiet rage at a film industry built upon dreams and fantasy but swimming in corruption.
It’s also a masterclass in sustained tension, though, with a wonderfully cast Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart as a mother/daughter pair under siege.įincher’s latest film is also his least accessible. There is a sense that Fincher viewed this more as a visual experiment than anything else – it’s a home invasion movie built for big, swooping camera movements, dreamy set design and technical wizardry, with plot almost superfluous. Panic Room is a lean and gnarly little thriller that tends to be overlooked in the Fincher oeuvre, potentially because its narrative ambitions are relatively minor.