Director: David Fincher
Author: Gillian Flynn (film based on her novel)
Starring: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Tyler Perry, Neil Patrick Harris, Missi Pyle.
Housekeeping, spoiler warning! I’ll be looking at the set up for the film first off and if you don’t want to know anything more than that, please don’t read beyond that point. After you’ve seen the film, pop back and see it you agree with the rest.
David Fincher tends to make two types of movies; either, damn near a masterpiece or pretty damn good. This pattern started with the pretty good “Alien 3” (underrated and he effectively quit before it was finished) which was followed up by “Seven”, the undisputed master of the serial killer with a pattern that became so popular at the tail end of the nineties/noughties. His newest film, “Gone Girl”, falls into the first category in that
it is quite close to a masterpiece on several levels. It’s not going to dislodge “Fight Club” as his best film to date and it still falls behind Zodiac in the thriller stakes but it is really, really good.
Going in cold, is probably the best way to see this film. The fact that the film is based on a hugely popular novel means that a lot of you won’t have that luxury but rest assured there is still plenty of fun to be had watching this master director working from a very tight script (by the novel’s author Gillian Flynn) to tell you the story in a different medium. If all you’re wondering is whether this film is worth seeing, then let me say “Yes, it definitely is”.
The simple pitch is that the film starts on the morning of Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) and Amy Dunne’s (Rosamund Pike) fifth wedding anniversary. Nick comes home from his bar to find that the house has signs of a struggle and that his wife is gone. He calls the police and they start the investigation. As this investigation runs on, more and more evidence starts to mount up that Nick might have something or everything to do with his wife’s disappearance.
From this rather humdrum setup we get a satirical look at the media that surround the investigation. Amy Dunne, "the gone girl" was a minor celebrity thanks to a series of children’s books her parents wrote based on an idealised version of her life called “The Adventures of Amazing Amy”. As a result of this, her disappearance coupled with a low level celebrity status, the media glare has fallen on both Nick and the investigation.
A major problem for Nick is that he continually acts in ways that doesn't fit the standard iconography of grieving husband in such a horrible situation and the media is quick to jump to conclusions. As Amy pointed our when they first met, he has a “villainous chin”. The gossip columnists and network news reporters tend to agree and mark him as the enemy flavour of the month. This attack is spearheaded by tabloid reporter Ellen Abbot (played with pitch perfect righteous moral outrage by Missi Pyle).
Reel Time Reviews
Gone Girl
"If You Seek Amy"