Sensory Overload Film Review: Gone Girl
David Fincher, the director of Fight Club and The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, returns with another adaptation of a pulpy, best-selling mystery novel. From a script by Gillian Flynn, who wrote the novel, the film stays mostly faithful to the novel, for predominantly better and a few times worse.
Gone Girl is a dark, bitter look on marriage while also being a satire on the power and follies of media in our society. The film starts on Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary (played flawlessly by Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike). In the opening minutes, Nick arrives home after spending some time at the bar he owns to find what looks to be a home invasion and a kidnapping of his wife. Nick calls the police, and after the detectives inspect the house they believe Nick may be at fault for the disappearance of Amy. The thoroughly engaging two hours and 20 minutes that follow are told from Nick’s perspective to prove himself that he’s not guilty, but also Amy’s perspective told through a diary she kept (shown through flashbacks with narration) to prove that Nick may be more dangerous and violent than he initially seems. Let’s just say one of them, if not both of them, are not being honest with people around them, which keeps the audience guessing and searching for answers much like the people in the film. Without giving too much away, the film has many twisted turns along the way which are best discovered with no prior knowledge of the novel’s structure and own surprises up it’s sleeve.
Is it any good? Well yes, it’s quite good actually, which is expected from anything David Fincher does. Fincher is one of the only modern filmmakers that I can think of that can turn even the simplest of scenes into something so much more, and because of this, the film is gripping for it’s entire running time. But with that being said, it does have some issues in the story department, which are attributable to the book as well. The ending of the film and the novel, while slightly different, both kind of fumble the ending. Gone Girl is a complex, multiple narrative, twists and turns kind of story, and while it works for the first two hours, the last 20 minutes are a tad unsatisfying. They’re not wasted minutes, and definitely not detrimental to everything that came before, but they do leave the audience wanting a more closed case type of denouement. With that being said, maybe the ending of the film is meant to be flawed and complex, much like the borderline psychopathic characters that inhabit the world of the film.
There is also going to be much talk about the film being misogynistic. The arguments for and against this belief will have some justification either way, but the film must be seen before these elements can be fully discussed. Which honestly, I think is the point of the film. It is suppose to pose questions on tough, hard to answer topics.
Which leads me to the positives of the film. The film is one of the smartest, more divisive films a major Hollywood studio will release this year, and probably anytime in the near future, and that is commendable on its own. It’s a major risk for a studio to fund, and under Fincher’s direction and the two lead performances, the film more than makes the risk a success. Any film that is basically a full on attack on modern marriages and media power is going to need to strong directing and controlled acting and storytelling, and the film has that in spates.
Ben Affleck is the anchor of the film. He is in nearly every scene until maybe 75% into the film where it does become more exclusively Amy’s story, but Affleck gives it his all. This is simply the best acting he has ever done. As for his sparring partner in this battle of the sexes film, Rosamund Pike absolutely owns every scene she is in. She is electrifying from start to finish, and is asked to portray vulnerability, sadness, fear, love, hatred, innocence and pure evil, sometimes all in the same scene and she nails it. If she doesn’t receive at least an Oscar nomination for her work, I think more than a few people will call foul on the Academy’s decision. It’s by far the best performance I have seen this year.
Behind the camera there is a lot of stylish, award worthy work much like the performances. David Fincher has made better, more satisfying films, but nonetheless, he is still top notch here, turning an otherwise pulpy story into master filmmaking. No one directs quite like, or as well as Fincher. The cinematography by Jeff Cronenweth and especially the editing by Kirk Baxter are also noticeable standouts. They will likely both be in the running for not just an Oscar nomination, but possibly the win. The score by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor, while mostly subtle throughout, might be the most eerie score they have done. Which is saying a lot since they also did the music for the past two Fincher films (The Social Network, which they won the Oscar for, and The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo).
Overall, Gone Girl, isn’t Fincher’s best film, but it’s still leaps ahead of almost every other film released this year and is definite must see for anyone who wants a smart, tense, brilliantly acted, brutally funny, technically precise and wholly mesmerizing psychological thriller.
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