It's too early to say perhaps, but this might be my favorite David Fincher movie to date. I was enthralled through the whole movie. Gone Girl is based on Gillian Flynn's best-selling novel. Although I haven't read the novel, Flynn herself wrote the screenplay for the movie and we've seen how adeptly Fincher adapts and often even improves upon the literature he draws from. It's an exciting time for cinema, what with directors coming to the front of their craft and honing in on their individual style and what really makes them who they are -- we've seen it in Wes Anderson, Terrence Malick, Paul Thomas Anderson, and more. Fincher is no exception to this cadre of exceptional directors who are exceptionalizing their style. Here in this movie, we see the epitome of the Fincher direction and mood, along with his impeccable partnership with cinematographer Jeff Croenworth who helps the movie simply glide along as well as focusing our attentions with his constant shallow depths of field. The opening shot says it all, really. I took in a sharp breath with the opening scene and knew instantly that I was going to be in good hands for the remainder of the movie.
Gone Girl takes place on the fifth anniversary of Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike), wherein Nick comes home to find unsettling signs of a struggle and a missing wife. Is he responsible for her disappearance? Was their marriage as happy as others were led to believe? Was it unhappy enough to lead to violence?
The whodunnit of it is a very small portion of the actual movie. Gone Girl is a look at media, but is also an almost cautionary horror tale of the binds of marriage as well as how our perceptions of people can be ever-evolving, misleading, and transformative. Nick Dunne's role in the media is ever-changing in a reflection of how knowing one simple fact or having one opinion can lead us to a completely different outlook.
I'd like to say Affleck and Pike are at top form here (Pike especially is fantastic, giving credence to her clout as a leading lady finally), but I think a lot of the credit goes to Fincher's choice of actors. Affleck and Pike have always had those inscrutable facades that don't always work for them in movies, but here they add weight to the "still waters run deeper" phrase and provide a sort of pallet for the audience to project upon. We sympathize, we try to discern, and at times we're terrified by what we see.
Gone Girl takes place on the fifth anniversary of Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike), wherein Nick comes home to find unsettling signs of a struggle and a missing wife. Is he responsible for her disappearance? Was their marriage as happy as others were led to believe? Was it unhappy enough to lead to violence?
The whodunnit of it is a very small portion of the actual movie. Gone Girl is a look at media, but is also an almost cautionary horror tale of the binds of marriage as well as how our perceptions of people can be ever-evolving, misleading, and transformative. Nick Dunne's role in the media is ever-changing in a reflection of how knowing one simple fact or having one opinion can lead us to a completely different outlook.
I'd like to say Affleck and Pike are at top form here (Pike especially is fantastic, giving credence to her clout as a leading lady finally), but I think a lot of the credit goes to Fincher's choice of actors. Affleck and Pike have always had those inscrutable facades that don't always work for them in movies, but here they add weight to the "still waters run deeper" phrase and provide a sort of pallet for the audience to project upon. We sympathize, we try to discern, and at times we're terrified by what we see.
Gone Girl has an incredible supporting cast, from Carrie Coon as Nick's twin sister Margo ("Go" for short) to Kim Dickens as the extremely likable Detective Rhonda Boney. Tyler Perry is also surprisingly effective and appropriately understated as attorney Tanner Bolt who takes on Nick Dunne's case. The only false note was, unfortunately Neil Patrick Harris as Desi Collins, a former admirer and supposed stalker of Amy Dunne. I feel I know why Fincher chose Harris, who can at times convey the sort of naivety and creepy confidence necessary for the role, but his part in the movie didn't quite settle, which perhaps isn't Harris' fault. He seemed to be channeling his playboy persona from How I Met Your Mother in a campy style that I wasn't sure whether to take as hang-dog endearing or gratingly disturbing.
The underlying motifs for Gone Girl, however, lie in our perception of others. How much of how we act is actually done in service to others or in the name of how we want to be seen? Gone Girl shows how characters constantly manipulate the media, but also how much the best and worst of ourselves are easily twisted by others.
Fincher's in top form here and although this movie clocks in at 2 and a half hours, the timing insinuates itself past your perception of it.
I'd actually love to write about this movie separately in a post that can give away plot points, but I need to gather some more coherence in my thoughts.
The underlying motifs for Gone Girl, however, lie in our perception of others. How much of how we act is actually done in service to others or in the name of how we want to be seen? Gone Girl shows how characters constantly manipulate the media, but also how much the best and worst of ourselves are easily twisted by others.
Fincher's in top form here and although this movie clocks in at 2 and a half hours, the timing insinuates itself past your perception of it.
I'd actually love to write about this movie separately in a post that can give away plot points, but I need to gather some more coherence in my thoughts.