Gone Girl
Can you ever really know the person you’re married to? You can know their usual Chinese food order, maybe anticipate their tastes in art and music. But do you ever know what’s going on in your spouse’s head?
Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck: Runner, Runner) meets his soul mate at a party in New York. Amy (Rosamund Pike: Hector and the Search for Happiness) is a catch: beautiful, brilliant and wealthy. After marriage, they remain the ideal couple. Even when the economy tanks, forcing them back to Nick’s Missouri home, they appear blissfully in love.
Until Nick comes home to a house littered with broken glass and overturned tables — and Amy gone. Police find Nick very calm and the scene suspicious.
Was Amy kidnapped? Or were there cracks in this perfect marriage?
Obsessing over the missing wife, the media seek a story for their viewers. Amy emerges as an angel and Nick as Suspect Number One. He’s too polite, too smarmy, not worried enough. When Amy’s diary appears, it offers a damning portrayal of the man at the center of the mystery. Soon, the 24/7 news coverage has convinced Nick’s neighbors, the American viewing audience and the police that there’s something wrong with the way Nick Dunne searches for his wife.
Is an innocent man a media scapegoat? Or is something sinister lurking beneath the shiny veneer of the Dunne union?
Gone Girl is a domestic drama turned horror movie. Director David Fincher (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) explores just how scary marriage can be in this adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s bestselling novel.
A master of dark and mysterious visuals and horror movie tropes, Fincher creates a fascinating thriller from the twisting novel. He is at his best exploring media scrutiny. In a beautiful sequence that makes Nick look like the Frankenstein Monster running for the hills, Fincher turns a candlelight vigil into a torch-wielding mob scene.
As the couple whose marriage curdles in its fifth year, Affleck and Pike are superb. Affleck, who endured heavy and often cruel media scrutiny over his relationships 10 years ago, seems born for the part of media-beleaguered Nick. His face is too perfect, his smile too bright and his reactions seem off. He’s exactly the kind of man who invites mistrust.
Pike is the real find in this marital horror show. Fierce, beautiful and whip smart, she is a pillar of domestic bliss one moment and a tragic victim the next. Her large eyes remaining unreadable, Pike makes her Amy a woman obsessed with keeping up appearances. When the shell cracks, Pike revels in revealing the creature beneath.
This movie will make you take a long hard look at your beloved.