Gone Girl (2014) | Movie Review

Amy Dunne is missing. Amy is seen as a quiet yet enigmatic woman. Engaging, yet distant. Accounts about her personality vary greatly, accounts about her disappearance even more so. Amy’s husband, Nick, has reported Amy missing, inciting a media firestorm. What happened to Amy? What is Nick hiding? Where is all of this ultimately going? These are the questions at the heart of David Fincher’s new film, Gone Girl.

As Detective Rhonda Boney begins to collect more and more evidence implicating Nick in Amy’s disappearance, other details emerge that create a more confusing narrative where everything is not quite as it seems. To describe the story any more in detail would venture far too heavily into spoiler territory and Gone Girl is one of those rare films where the discovery is every bit as important as the journey.

Ben Affleck’s portrayal of Nick should surprise even the harshest of Affleck’s critics. Nick has spent his entire life attempting to escape the shadow of his abusive father, oblivious to his own narcissistic and short-tempered ways even as he continuously glides his own life down a similar course. Affleck’s confident-yet-cocky everyman persona is put to strong use here as his Nick is so fanatically obsessed with pleasing everyone, he cannot even garner enough composure to keep from smiling while pleading for his wife’s safe return. Once the entirety of the film is laid out in front of us, with a clear understanding of everything that has come before it, only then do we see just how layered of a performance Affleck has served up here. Earning condemnation when Nick deserves the benefit of the doubt, and even winning empathy when Nick assuredly needs none – Affleck offers his most complex performance to date.

As well as Affleck performs, Rosamund Pike is a revelation as Amy. Telling her story primarily in flashbacks, Pike’s Amy is remembered in numerous scenarios by various characters and each offer another facet to her character. Amy is the lynchpin to the entire film, and how you feel about her as both a character and a plot point will ultimately determine if you will fully appreciate or revolt against her actions. For all of the lesser films that Pike has shined through previously, in Gone Girl we are finally treated to something grander. Pike plays Amy as an intelligent yet tortured soul, a resilient woman who can extinguish your sympathy just as quickly as she has fought to earn it. This is a star-making role for Pike and she spends the entirety of the film swinging for the fences, never once looking back.

While Affleck and Pike debate Heaven and Hell, the strong supporting cast are the angels keeping the story in flight. As Nick’s heartbroken twin sister, Margo, Carrie Coon is charged with showcasing the emotion that Nick is so clearly incapable of. Margo is put through an emotional roller-coaster throughout the film, and Coon commits to how deeply this horrific story affects much more than simply Nick himself. Tyler Perry and Kim Dickens also turn in strong performances as Nick’s Johnny Cochran-like attorney Tanner Bolt and Detective Boney, respectively. Both actors offer moments of levity and humor to an otherwise dour experience, with Perry in particular taking the opportunity to illuminate his abilities outside of the Madea franchise.

Adapting from her own novel, Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl has a lot to say about the state of marriage in today’s world. She has even more to say about the current 24/7 media environment and our own societal need to present the very best version of ourselves at all times and costs. The crime-mystery wrapper surrounding Gone Girl is only a shell for the film’s underlying dissection of a marriage and a culture too far gone to revitalize. The ideas put forth in Gone Girl, both the realistic and the absurd, are those of an intelligent satirist at the top of her game.

Speaking of satirists: David Fincher is a director known for crafting intelligent dramas out of the most mundane of situations (Seven, The Social Network), and Gone Girl lives up to his heritage. Enhanced by the brilliant score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Fincher propels the story forward, keeping the mystery alive long after we believe we have already solved it. The third act loiters around a bit longer than it needed to, and the final piece felt like it belonged to another puzzle, but overall Fincher has managed to take a story many felt unfilmable and crafted a movie guaranteed to spark a conversation at your local water cooler.

Come for the mystery, stay for the stellar performances and a story that will definitely leave you and your friends talking. If you happen to be having any relationship issues though? For better or worse, Gone Girl might be a film best suited for cable.

Aaron Peterson
The Hollywood Outsider