The Game (1997) on Netflix
R19972h 9mDramaMysteryThriller
San Francisco investment banker Nicholas Van Orton turns 48 and receives from his brother Conrad a voucher for a game run by Consumer Recreation Services. The game reaches into his daily life.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.7/10477,555 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes77%
Trailer
Plot summary
Nicholas Van Orton works as an investment banker in San Francisco, and his father killed himself on his 48th birthday. For his own 48th birthday, his younger brother Conrad, from whom he has grown apart, hands him a voucher for a game run by Consumer Recreation Services. Nicholas goes to the company's office, takes a series of tests, and is told his application has been turned down. Back home, he finds a wooden clown in his driveway, and the news anchor on his television screen speaks to him, saying a camera hidden in the clown's head is watching him. The anchor gives him a hotline number for the company and tells him not to call it to ask what the game is.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Game (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- At the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, PolyGram announced that Jodie Foster would star with Michael Douglas, but Fincher, uneasy about her taking a supporting part, thought of rewriting Conrad as Nicholas's daughter so Foster could play it; Douglas instead wanted the character to be his sister, which Foster found odd as Douglas is almost 20 years her senior.
- Jodie Foster alleged she and PolyGram had orally agreed she would appear in the film, and when it did not happen she filed a $54.5 million lawsuit against PolyGram; she and Fincher later worked together on Panic Room (2002).
- Jonathan Mostow was attached to direct with Kyle MacLachlan and Bridget Fonda cast in the lead roles, but the project moved from MGM to PolyGram in early 1992 and Mostow dropped out as director, staying on as an executive producer.
- Deborah Kara Unger's audition for the role of Christine was a test reel made of a two-minute sex scene from David Cronenberg's Crash; Michael Douglas initially thought it was a joke, but he and Fincher were impressed when they met her.
- Fincher brought in Andrew Kevin Walker, who had worked with him on Seven, to make Nicholas more cynical; they spent six weeks changing the tone, and revisions removed a scene in which Nicholas kills Christine and then commits suicide because Fincher felt it made no sense.
- The close-up of Michael Douglas trapped in the back seat of the taxi that plunges into San Francisco Bay was shot on a soundstage at Sony Pictures Studios in a large water tank, with Douglas in a small compartment built to look like the back seat and three cameras capturing the action.
- Fincher used a Technicolor printing process called ENR, which gave the night sequences a smoother look, and shot scenes with a single camera because, he said, "with multiple cameras, you run the risk of boring people with coverage."
- Fincher shot in San Francisco despite studio pressure to use cheaper Los Angeles, and he liked the financial district's "old money, Wall Street vibe"; the script had been written with San Francisco in mind, Chicago was ruled out for having no mansions nearby and Seattle for lacking an adequate financial district.
