Director: David Fincher

Starring: Ben Affleck & Rosamund Pike 

Running Time: 149 mins

Release date: 3 Oct, 2014

Worldwide Gross: N/A

 

 

 

 

Basic Plot:

 

It's hard to discuss Gone Girl without discussing major plot twists, but the movie stars Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike as Nick and Amy Dunne, New York transplants living in small town Missouri, where Nick grew up. On the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy goes missing. Their home becomes a crime scene and Amy's journal details a long history of mental and physical abuse. The story makes national news and the public turns on Nick; but did Nick actually murder his wife?

 

Clock Watching? 19/20

 

Where does Gone Girl exist on a scale between high and low art? While the place of Gillian Flynn's original novel, which she adapted into the screenplay, is debatable, the movie's undeniably art of the highest quality.

 

In fact, some of our greatest movies have come from popular sources, like Psycho (1960), with which Gone Girl shares some grand themes (like our inability to really know someone and our immense capacity for perversion).

 

Now, a lot happens during Gone Girl's running time of 149 minutes, and as Hitchcock famously said, "The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder." In the case of Gone Girl, the human bladder can endure for more than 149 minutes, which is quite a feat.

 

Lights, Camera, Direction? 20/20

 

As Tony Zhou explains in a recent video essay, Fincher's movies aren't about what's done, but what's not done. Gone Girl is no exception.

 

Fincher's camera hardly moves throughout, instead observing omnisciently and granting the content a certain fated feeling, as though the events unfolding are inevitable and doomed to happen. Fincher's familiar extremely low lighting and tinting envelops this portentous aesthetic.

 

But the devil's really in the details, and Fincher's the master of detail. For instance, during a flashback to one of Nick and Amy's wedding treasure hunts, the couple exchanges the same gift: a pair of expensive bed sheets. Without warning, the movie cuts harshly to Nick making his own bed on his sister's living room couch, opening up old and somewhat wrinkled bed sheets that are far less glamorous than the previously seen sheets. Whereas Nick and Amy's relationship was previously glossy and ideal (and all-surface, like the sheets), it's now lonely, miserable, used, and full of wrinkles. (It's worth noting, too, that beds, bed sheets, and mattresses populated the movie like supporting characters; fruitful details, full of meaning).

 

Oscar Performances? 19/20

 

Yes, Fincher's all about details, including details in performances. Fincher cast Affleck for a number of reasons, among them his smile. So much about Nick's character can be learned from his smile (something Amy acknowledges).

 

With such focus, Fincher extracts the same nuances from every performer, from Carrie Coon as Margo Dunne, Nick's sister; to Kim Dickens as Det. Rhonda Boney, the lead detective on Amy's case, and even Tyler Perry as Tanner Bolt, the Johnny Cochran-like lawyer who helps Nick. However, Neil Patrick Harris as Desi Collings, a former love interest of Amy's who's still obsessed with her, felt somewhat stiff and a little miscast.

 

The real star, though, is Rosamund Pike as Amy. She's a character who little can be said without spoiling the movie, except that Pike should definitely be an Oscar contender for her performance.

 

Tell a Friend? 20/20

 

Gone Girl really goes after two audiences: those who want thrilling entertainment and those who know Fincher's reputation. This is seen in the trailers that play before the movie: awards contenders like The Theory of Everything (2014), Fury (2014), and American Sniper (2014), alongside Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) and the action comedy Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015).

 

In other words, Gone Girl covers many demographics, and since it's based on a bestselling novel with a built-in audience, many won't need to be persuaded to watch it. However, those who do will hear my enthusiastic “yawp” of praise.

 

Again? 20/20

 

I'm already planning on watching it again (and purchasing the Blu-ray).

 

David Fincher, like Stanley Kubrick before him, prefers multiple takes of a scene: forty, fifty, a hundred maybe? Such a director, with such an attention to detail, deserves to be watched again and really scrutinized and mined for their riches.

 

Total: 98%

 

At the moment, Gone Girl ranks alongside Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and Richard Linklater's Boyhood (2014) as the best movies of the year. It also perpetuates and proudly stands alongside a string of recent, mature masterpieces from Fincher, including Zodiac (2007), The Social Network (2010), and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011).

 

Gone Girl is surely David Fincher's latest masterwork.

 

by Scotty Barnhart