You don't know what you've got 'til
it's...
There
are many surprising things about Gone Girl, not the least of which Ben Affleck
finally stars in a film I like. A lot. Even more surprising than Affleck’s
successful stab at a personal renaissance, are the wild and
twisted subject matters his new film takes at every turn. Love, crime, sex, and
betrayal - everything a good thriller needs, Gone Girl delivers in spades. Add
in a murder-mystery, a Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score, and the Austen-esque beauty of Rosamund Pike and you’ve got this year’s must-see.
 |
| yep |
From
the offset, Gone Girl is classic Fincher. He had me at that cold opening that
evoked equal sensations of paranoia and glee:
“When I think of my wife, I always think of
her head…I picture opening her skull, unspooling her brain and sifting through
it, trying to catch and pin down her thoughts. What are you thinking, Amy?"
It’s
stomach-churningly macabre.
Based
off a book of the same name, the film’s premise is simple: Boy marries girl.
Girl goes missing. Boy is suspected of murder. It starts off slow in
the sleepy town of Missouri on the morning of Nick and Amy Dunne's fifth
wedding anniversary. The couple lives a privileged life in picture-perfect
suburbia where, behind closed doors, domestic drama runs rife. Amy is an
uptight, unemployed magazine writer and Nick is her laid-off deadbeat husband. When
Amy vanishes without warning, Nick brings suspicion upon himself by seeming not
devastated. Oh yeah, and there’s that time he is photographed bearing a foolish
grin beside his wife’s MISSING poster. His reaction is not just perverse - it’s damn
hilarious.
.tiff) |
| What a schmuck |
Nick’s tomboyish twin sister Margo (Carrie Coon) swears to stay by his
side amidst the media frenzy, although she suspects he is hiding something.
Coon, coming off the back of the first season of The Leftovers, is outstanding
in her debut movie role and demands everyone take notice. (Did I mention that
she should win all the awards ever for her work on that show?)
A
seemingly straightforward whodunit crime drama soon diverts into a complex commentary
on marriage, psychopathy and media circuses. Fincher explores the dichotomy of
who we are as opposed to how we present ourselves. He highlights the personas
people pursue to successfully navigate social
institutions
and intimate relationships alike. At the heart of all the commotion is Nick
and Amy's dysfunctional marriage, which is foundering for several reasons. The
early stages of their domestic drama are told in flashbacks accompanied by Pike’s
haunting narration. Scripted by the original author Gillian Flynn,
and sticking closely to the source novel, it’s funny in a grim way, getting
more histrionic as events unfold.
The intricacy of plot, the airtight precision
of the scenes, and Pike’s cool blondeness resembles that of a
Hitchcock film. Twists and turns are plenty, especially in the second
half when the tone shifts from self-serious crime drama to
all-out erotic thriller. Suddenly the floor is covered in a puddle of blood and
lies, and the wacky story elements no longer seem unreasonable but wildly
entertaining.
