What might American Beauty and Fight Club have in common? It’s a question begged by statements made by the actor Kevin Spacey, who asserted the films have similar thematic issues. His comments may initially seem strangely outlandish, considering the disparate subject matter of the two movies. American Beauty is about a suburban, middle-aged dad, while Fight Club centers around a 20-something, single urban professional. Yet upon further review, Spacey may be onto something.

At the heart of Fight Club is the dispirited young Narrator of the film, played by the always interesting Edward Norton, who feels listless at his well-paying but empty corporate job. When not at the desk of his cubbyhole of an office or off traveling on one of his many business trips, he spends his time pouring over IKEA catalogs, seeking to complete his apartment with just the right table, lamp of signature glassware set piece. His is a hollow existence, one which leaves him so numbed as to keep him from sleep. His only relief from persistent insomnia is to crash a variety of support groups, where the emotional releases and confessional tone of the meetings allow him to feel alive and thus allow him to once again slumber.

But his peaceful nights do not last long. Soon the Narrator becomes unnerved when he notices a familiar figure appearing at all his group meetings. She is a chain-smoking, brazen young women named Maria (Helena Bonham Carter, far from her usual Merchant-Ivory material), who is obviously a fake (her appearance at the group for survivors of testicular cancer tips him off). But more specifically, her presence is a stinging reminder of his own fraudulence.

Reeling once more, the Narrator finds his path crossed with that of a true maverick, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a soap salesman who challenges the Narrator’s materialism and consumerist obsessions and joins him in starting a support group of their own — Fight Club. In this backroom brawling society, normal joes shed their ties, suit coats and other restraints to spend a few hours clobbering each other and reveling in the moments in which they are able to feel something… anything.

As directed by David Fincher (Seven, The Game), Fight Club becomes a bloody, brutal, bare-knuckled assault on the senses that often distracts from some of the intriguing issues at its core. Fincher is an undeniable stylist, using everything in his arsenal including jump-cuts, fantasy sequences and flashbacks, to tell his story. Also, and perhaps most importantly, he elicits strong performances from his leads, who arguably make some palatable material somewhat more bearable and help keep the film’s theme from becoming completely submerged underneath its showy grit.

Like American Beauty, this film follows a protagonist who has lost his way and identity. In fact, he is so in turmoil over “finding himself” that his is the only main character without a name. Just as Spacey’s Lester Burnham —and, for that matter, each of the characters in American Beauty — struggles to regain his vitality and reconnect with the person he believes he wants to be, Norton’s Narrator finds himself adrift in society and unsure of what his role should be. Underlying both films is a spiritual struggle in which lost souls try to reconnect with some kind of purpose and reason within a world in which their struggle is not so clearly delineated.

Fight Club, rated R for graphic violence and language, risks pounding audiences into a bloody pulp with its often unrelenting savagery. Just as a boxer with a few too many head shots, viewers may find themselves so hard of hearing that any relevant message may get lost in the din of a constant ringing in your ears.