The
narrator (Edward Norton) is an automobile company employee who travels
to accident sites to perform product recall cost appraisals. His doctor
refuses to write a prescription for his insomnia and instead suggests
that he visit a support group for testicular cancer victims in order to
appreciate real suffering. When he attends the group, the narrator
allows himself to weep as a form of emotional release. He is then able
to sleep soundly and subsequently fakes more illnesses so he can attend
other support groups in order to get out his pent up emotions through
crying. The narrator's routine is disrupted when he begins to notice
another impostor, Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), at the same
meetings and his insomnia returns.
During a flight for a business trip, the narrator meets Tyler Durden
(Brad Pitt), who makes and sells soap. The narrator arrives home to
find his apartment has been destroyed by an explosion. He calls Tyler
and meets him at a bar. Tyler agrees to let the narrator stay at his
home on the condition that the narrator hits him. The narrator complies
and the two end up enjoying a fist fight outside the bar. The narrator
moves into Tyler's dilapidated house and the two return to the bar,
where they have another fight in the parking lot. After attracting a
crowd, they establish a 'fight club' in the bar's basement.
When Marla overdoses on Xanax, she is rescued by Tyler and the two
embark upon a sexual relationship. Tyler tells the narrator never to
talk about him to Marla. Under Tyler's leadership, the fight club
becomes "Project Mayhem," which commits increasingly destructive acts
of anti-materialist vandalism in the city. The fight clubs become a
network for Project Mayhem, and the narrator is left out of Tyler's
activities with the project. After an argument, Tyler disappears from
the narrator's life and when a member of Project Mayhem dies on a
mission, the narrator attempts to shut down the project. Tracing
Tyler's steps, he travels around the country to find that fight clubs
have been started in every major city, where one of the participants
identifies him as Tyler Durden. A phone call to Marla confirms his
identity and he realizes that Tyler is an alter ego of his own split
personality. Tyler appears before him and explains that he controls the
narrator's body whenever he is asleep.
The narrator faints and awakes to find Tyler has made several phone
calls during his blackout and traces his plans to the downtown
headquarters of several major credit card companies, which Tyler
intends to destroy in order to cripple the financial networks. Failing
to find help with the police, many of whom are members of Project
Mayhem, the narrator attempts to disarm the explosives in the basement
of one of the buildings. He is confronted by Tyler, knocked
unconscious, and taken to the upper floor of another building to
witness the impending destruction. The narrator, held by Tyler at
gunpoint, realizes that in sharing the same body with Tyler, he is the
one who is actually holding the gun. He fires it into his mouth,
shooting through the cheek without killing himself. The illusion of
Tyler collapses with an exit wound to the back of his head. Shortly
after, members of Project Mayhem bring a kidnapped Marla to the
narrator and leave them alone. The bombs detonate and, holding hands,
the two witness the destruction of the entire financial city block
through the windows.
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