(David Fincher, US 1997, 129 min., 35mm)
Perhaps most fitting for a series about Bad Days for Michael Douglas, this thriller finds Douglas playing Nicholas Van Orton, a divorced San Francisco investment banker about to celebrate his forty-eighth birthday. His estranged but caring brother Conrad (Sean Penn) gives him a gift worthy of the man who has everything: a real-life game that promises to make Nick’s life “fun.” After a battery of physical and psychological tests, Nick is rejected from participating. But when the mysterious Consumer Recreation Services plants cameras inside his home, it seems they may have another agenda. Overlooked upon its initial release, this David Fincher-directed suspense-mystery has gained a cult following and may be one of the richest explorations of a filmmaker talking about filmmaking.
35mm print from the George Eastman Museum collection.