Why David Fincher’s Se7en is the per­fect odd cou­ple movie

In the penul­ti­mate episode of HBO’s Eupho­ria, Zen­daya describes Mor­gan Free­man in Se7en as the guy who’s ​“always calm­ly putting the pieces of the case togeth­er while every­body around him is freak­ing out.” As soon-to-retire homi­cide detec­tive William Som­er­set in David Fincher’s acclaimed crime thriller, Free­man tells his young, ide­al­is­tic new part­ner David Mills (Brad Pitt) ​“this isn’t going to have a hap­py end­ing.” Hav­ing fought for reas­sign­ment to the grimy unnamed city – a vague fac­sim­i­le of New York – Mills dives head­first into the hunt for a ser­i­al killer who is using the Sev­en Dead­ly Sins as his modus operandi.

Accord­ing to Finch­er and screen­writer Andrew Kevin Walk­er, our cul­ture is drift­ing through dark­ness. The mouth­piece for Se7en’s bleak out­look is Som­er­set, whose bril­liant, lit­er­ate mind has become poi­soned by despair. Ser­i­al killer John Doe (Kevin Spacey) believes he is doing God’s work in tor­tur­ing and mur­der­ing his cho­sen vic­tims, which ulti­mate­ly tests the faith and virtue of our opti­mistic, hot-head­ed hero, Mills, in peo­ple, the job, and himself.

Se7en imme­di­ate­ly estab­lish­es the world of its dynam­ic duo and their con­trast­ing per­son­al­i­ties. With the sound of the city he’s sworn to pro­tect roar­ing in the back­ground, the film opens on Som­er­set alone in his apart­ment ear­ly in the morn­ing. Bare walls, a chess­board and a metronome indi­cate that this is a man who has ded­i­cat­ed his life to the job and deprived him­self of any kind of per­son­al ful­fil­ment or hap­pi­ness. In con­trast, Mills wakes up next to his lov­ing wife Tra­cy (Gwyneth Pal­trow) and, despite unpacked box­es lit­ter­ing their flat, pho­tos and signs of domes­tic life exist all around them.

Their late night research habits illus­trate their respec­tive age and expe­ri­ence. Som­er­set heads to the library to study Chaucer and Dante as he lis­tens to Bach – cen­turies of lit­er­ary his­to­ry sur­round him as he attempts to under­stand the deprav­i­ties of human­i­ty while tak­ing notes. Mills on the oth­er hand ago­nis­es over crime scene pho­tos in his cramped apart­ment as the TV plays and Tra­cy frets in the next room. The next morn­ing he pur­chas­es Dante Cliff­s­Notes, which he nev­er uses, instead opt­ing for the abridged ver­sion from Som­er­set himself.

In spite of a five-year career as a homi­cide detec­tive, Mills is still a rook­ie in Somerset’s eyes, yet to unearth the seedy under­bel­ly of the city for him­self. Their approach­es to the case couldn’t be more dif­fer­ent. As per Zendaya’s obser­va­tion, Som­er­set calm­ly puts the pieces togeth­er; he’s an intel­lec­tu­al, refined gen­tle­man who believes the case won’t be solved by force alone. It will require crit­i­cal think­ing, wis­dom and expe­ri­ence that Mills sore­ly lacks. This isn’t to say Mills isn’t a good detec­tive; he’s smart but per­haps a lit­tle cocky. His sole focus on the crime scene pho­tos impedes his abil­i­ties and Som­er­set is right to instead con­sid­er the moti­va­tions of the perpetrator.

In a piv­otal scene, Mills and Som­er­set drown their sor­rows in a bar after their (unknow­ing) first brush with Doe. ​“How did you get like this?” a curi­ous Mills asks, as Glo­ria Lynne’s ​‘Speak­ing of Hap­pi­ness’ plays iron­i­cal­ly in the back­ground. ​“It wasn’t one thing I’ll tell you that,” Som­er­set woe­ful­ly replies, hint­ing that the job is des­tined to wear down even the best of them over time. Their pur­suit of Doe – a man who believes peo­ple must be hit with a sledge­ham­mer for them to lis­ten – elic­its an inter­nal exam­i­na­tion of Som­er­set and his dim world­view. When Som­er­set express­es his hatred towards people’s apa­thy (not unlike Doe) Mills crit­i­cis­es his stance, argu­ing that he’s des­per­ate­ly try­ing to believe what he’s say­ing because he’s retir­ing, not the oth­er way around.

Mills rep­re­sents hope and moral­i­ty and, upon first meet­ing, Somerset’s per­spec­tive on life is stead­fast, where­as Mills has yet to be hard­ened by the city. Doe seeks to change the world, Mills wants to save it, and Som­er­set just wants to get the hell out of the way. As the drinks dry up, Som­er­set realis­es that Mills is tru­ly a good per­son, who needs to believe that there is good worth fight­ing for in such an ugly world. Som­er­set has been con­sumed by his own pes­simism to the point that he’s almost stunned that some­one like Mills could exist.

It is Tra­cy who intrin­si­cal­ly links the two men. After invit­ing the unmar­ried Som­er­set over for din­ner, she thaws the icy bridge between them and befriends her husband’s new col­league. The din­ner human­is­es them both and is the only time in the film that they are relaxed and hap­py togeth­er away from the case. It is through Tra­cy that we learn most about these ret­i­cent cops, wit­ness­ing them at their most per­son­al and intimate.

Days after the din­ner, Tra­cy meets Som­er­set and reveals that she’s preg­nant but afraid of rais­ing chil­dren in the city. Som­er­set con­fess­es that once, long ago, he too had a preg­nant part­ner, but pres­sured her to get an abor­tion. Although he’s sure he made the right choice, not a day goes by where he doesn’t think about what might have been. Som­er­set views Tra­cy and Mills as the life he might have had had he act­ed dif­fer­ent­ly. This ulti­mate­ly cul­mi­nates in tragedy, not only for Mills due to the loss of his wife and unborn child, but for Som­er­set as well, whose sec­ond chance is, quite lit­er­al­ly, butchered in front of him.

Pal­trow brings warmth and human­i­ty to a film where when it rains, it pours; the impact of the infa­mous end­ing is as deeply felt as her emo­tion­al ties to both men. Som­er­set and Doe have sim­i­lar view­points but fol­low very dif­fer­ent paths towards escape. Mills is a good man fight­ing for jus­tice, the cru­el twist being his cor­rup­tion in the end. The only mur­der we wit­ness on-screen is Mills killing Doe – the final sin of the latter’s ​“mas­ter­piece”. In a film about ret­ri­bu­tion, Somerset’s fail­ure to save Mills from the clutch­es of evil is per­haps the biggest tragedy.

In the end, Mills’ future is unde­ter­mined – but hope blos­soms for Som­er­set. As his shat­tered part­ner is dri­ven away, Som­er­set utters his final the­mat­ic state­ment over the ris­ing sun, ​“Ernest Hem­ing­way once wrote, ​‘The world is a fine place and worth fight­ing for.’ I agree with the sec­ond part.” But do we?