Gone Girl (UK Rating: 18)
Director David Fincher has been quoted as saying he wants Gone Girl to be the date movie that will end in 15 million divorces. Clearly he’s optimistic about the number of people likely to see the film in the first place, but is it a heavy-handed hint about the film’s attitude towards marriage? Or is Fincher just toying with his audience? From the outside it may look like a regular mystery thriller, but Lights, Camera, Action! peels back the layers to discover that nothing is quite as it seems. With Gone Girl on general release across the UK now, Freda Cooper delves in to provide the final verdict.
To the outside world, Nick and Amy Dunne (Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike) have the perfect marriage, even if their careers have been nipped in the bud by the recession. On the day after their fifth wedding anniversary, though, Nick comes home and finds that his wife’s disappeared. It all looks more than suspicious: the glass coffee table is smashed to pieces and there are spatters of blood in the kitchen. The police think it looks dodgy as well, and their number one suspect is the husband. They struggle to put together a case, but eventually scrape enough evidence to make an arrest.
That is just part of the story. To reveal more would be unfair on both the makers and the audience but it’s safe to say that this is an intricately constructed film with a snake-like plot that keeps a firm grip on its audience for the entire running time of over two hours – not a minute too long or too short.
The straightforward mystery thriller is just one of a multitude of layers that Fincher peels back as the film progresses. Nick and Amy’s ideal marriage is nothing of the sort, for instance. It’s clinically dissected, firstly by the police, then by Nick himself with the disclosure that he’s been having an affair, and then by Amy in her secret diary. Each revelation digs deeper and gets significantly darker, and as the song says, “Nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors.”
Another of Fincher’s layers is decidedly satirical. Admittedly, he’s picked a popular target in the media and shows how easy it is to twist a story and how just one solitary photograph can create a strong impression, accurate or otherwise. However, he doesn’t stop there, also showing how the media itself can also be manipulated. When Amy goes missing, her parents are surprisingly more adept at dealing with the TV cameras than Nick himself. In fact, when an in-depth TV interview is set up for him, his hotshot attorney conducts training sessions with the help of Gummy Bears!
The film is based on Gillian Lynn’s international best seller of the same name and Fincher has also drafted her in to write the screenplay. The result is sharp, sometimes spare, dialogue that, like the entire film, has a mile-wide streak of black running through it. Gone Girl proves to be fascinating – morbidly so at times – and even produces some laugh-out-loud moments. They don’t come from humour, though, but some of the more audacious twists in the plot.
Despite success behind the camera, Affleck is well cast for this role – smooth, plausible and just a touch too cocky – and he delivers a good performance. But it’s Brit Rosamund Pike who steals the show as Amy – smart, resourceful but with more than a touch of the princess about her. It’s a strong piece of acting and although, at the moment, the film isn’t necessarily being seen as an award contender this season, she could find herself earning a nod or two at the very least.
