Crime thrillers are a delicacy of human depravity, and when done well, they are unparalleled in success and notoriety. Se7en is David Fincher’s biblical, dark chronicle of a serial killer who aims to recreate the seven deadly sins through his murders. The film is relentlessly dark, a depiction of human evil as low as the depths of hell, meant literally and metaphorically, as the killer aims to recreate every sin; to uncover the absolute worst of humanity. 

Se7en hosts similarities to thrillers like Oldboy and Memories of Murder, as well as Fincher’s other films such as Zodiac, all of which are cases that tear their investigators out of their normal lives and confine them to investigation that consumes them. These films are thrilling character studies of evil beyond explanation, where we watch these outsiders, people like us with families, friends, and lives lose everything in the pursuit of these crimes. 

Crime thrillers are less about the crime and more about what's behind it and what follows it. The investigator’s stories reveal to us not who the criminal is or how to catch them, but rather what these crimes really say about our society, as well as the far-reaching effects of trauma. The facts of the crime, the reasons the investigation starts in the first place, begin to lose their meaning as we watch the horrific consequences of the crime unfold.

The biblical motifs of Se7en make this even more profound, examining our society on a religious plane of existence. It takes good and evil as concepts and blurs them; what happens when evil as a concept becomes evil as tangible action. Each murder is so gritty, so deeply violent and upsetting even before they become intertwined with young detective David Mills (Brad Pitt). Alongside his partner, the far more experienced yet disillusioned (and soon to retire) William Somerset (Morgan Freeman), the two are forced to turn to study the seven deadly sins, and observe horrific violence throughout the city and they struggle to catch the killer. 

When a broken-down, exhausted Mills asks the killer “What’s in the box?” he is filled with so much dread for the consequences on his life for having been involved in the case at all that when he asks it is because he doesn’t want to have to uncover it for himself. He does not want the story to end how it inevitably does, and he does not want to have to do the investigating anymore. Se7en is not a fun crime thriller, but a harrowing and unforgettable investigation into how evil humanity can be. Se7en’s world feels no longer like the Earth we think we live in and more like the hell we’re damned to instead. 

Se7en screens at the Coolidge Corner Theater on Saturday, November 4th at 7:00 p.m. 

Until next time, 

Karenna

Photograph: IMDb