10 Best Films With Unreliable Narrators

Edward Norton’s narrator in Fight Club is never named, and is given few redeeming qualities, meaning that it proves difficult for the viewer to empathise with him. We watch him almost pitifully as he deals with his unfulfilling life and infiltrates support groups to gain some kind of meaningful human interaction in his life.

This only serves to emphasise how believable it is that he would be attracted to handsome, charming Tyler Durden. He is enticed by Durden’s rejection of commercialisation and enhanced masculinity. His acceptance of chaos and the lure of being part of a bigger organisation is one that soon entices others into his world.

We get to live vicariously through his activities, and he becomes more relatable the deeper he is sucked into the darkness of Durden’s fantasies, showing that we are all susceptible to wanting to belong and conversely wanting to change the world.

The narrator’s final realisation that Durden is part of his dissociative identity disorder is as much as shock to him as the viewer, leaving you wondering how much of the film happened, as you are shown a smattering of scenes as they really occurred, but others are left to the imagination.