
Gone Girl begins at dawn, amidst the obscure, muted-blue light of daybreak. This mid-western town is still, innocent, asleep. The ambiguity of this diffuse light, the mysterious, otherworldliness of twilight, cultivates Gone Girl’s intrigue. There are wisps of a crime documentary here, the setting of context through location snapshots, glimpses of buildings and places that are abandoned, lonely, static. It’s the quiet before the storm. Out from this silence David Fincher (the director of Seven, Fight Club and The Social Network) builds his film with a furious, kinetic energy, unafraid to shock and confront, dragging us with him, until we too are active participants in his cutting satire.
Gone Girl begins life as a noir-esque thriller, essentially a kidnap saga. Our ‘gone girl’ Amy (Rosamund Pike) speaks to us through her diary. Amy’s voiceover charts the rapid decline of a marriage from powerful attraction to fear, while husband Nick (Ben Affleck) casually shows detectives around the sumptuous home he shares with her – now a crime scene – and courts public favour. Fincher’s film is stylish, seductive, even sexy, but these are not the reasons Gone Girl will endure.
What’s most gripping about Fincher’s Gone Girl are not the twists and turns, of which there are many, but its unflinching attempt to jab and cut its way into the dark, bleeding heart of modern marriage. This is solid writing from Gillian Flynn, adapting her own book, poking at the foul, soiled and malignant in long-term relationships. Partners know the very worst parts of each other and in Gone Girl this becomes a kind of perverse attraction.
“Jabs and cuts its way into the dark, bleeding heart of modern marriage”
There’s also a much more delicate and contentious question about societal pressures, particularly those placed on women, at work in this twisted tale. Amy’s life runs parallel with that of Amazing Amy – her parent’s best-selling fictional creation and the perfect woman society demands. Fincher is fearless here as Amy takes down the sexy, sympathetic ‘cool girl’ as a fabrication, a pretence to please men, in such vivid language that will make you instantly recoil before ultimately cleaving to her genuine, unvarnished feelings. Amy’s thoughts are harsh, abrasive, shocking, but they spark a crucial debate – a debate society and the movies needs to have.
Both Nick and Amy, then, are embellished versions of themselves with airs and graces designed to ensnare the opposite sex. Disrobed of their costumes it is their marriage that pays the ultimate price. Affleck and Pike are unmissable here. Awards season nominations would not be amiss, their subtle, chilly chemistry creating its own ambiguity. Nick’s musings that he would like to ‘crack open’ Amy’s head to get at the thoughts inside is no less vivid than Amy’s ‘cool girl’ tirade. Fincher’s entire film serves to equate wedlock to mystery, ambiguity, even death. The essence of Gone Girl is this tangled psychology of marriage.
That neither Nick nor Amy can be entirely trusted is something Fincher toys with from the beginning, drowning out Amy’s recollections of implausibly witty flirtations with disconcerting score. Is Amy donning rose-tinted spectacles, are her memories embellished, romanticised? Are they a dreamy sweetener like the dusting of sugar Nick wipes from her mouth before he kisses her passionately for the first time? Was it ever this good? Do her memories even matter?
(Un)reliability and its consequence, ambiguity, is the fuel that propels Gone Girl. At the outset, Affleck’s Nick is cool, matter-of-fact, noticeably unworried. Affleck’s is a performance designed for speculation. Why does Nick behave this way? Who is he? And has he done it?
“Gone Girl reveals something much darker and more profound than simply whodunit”
The result of all these unanswered questions is speculation. Fincher makes a cutting satire of media news coverage and our innate fascination with the macabre. Nick’s green errors – like smiling in front of Amy’s ‘Missing’ poster – are catnip to those behind the cameras and the public turn on him without second thought. Lives are carved up, unceremoniously dissected by chat show hosts and media junkies, only to be put back together again by those expert at massaging public perceptions. Yet even as we watch this nightmarish satire unfold before us, we cannot escape our own flash judgements, our own ill-advised speculation about who might be responsible for this terrible crime. Fincher’s brilliance here is unrivalled. The appeal of his whole film is built on our willingness to speculate, our enjoyment of it, only to draw attention to the negative consequences of such speculation in an age where ignorant opinions have an instant audience. Even Gone Girl’s trailer entices prospective audiences with a did-he, didn’t-he premise on which to conjecture.
The genius of Gone Girl lies in Fincher’s dexterity with the language of film, his ability to turn ambiguity, mystery, to his advantage and reveal something much darker and more profound than simply whodunit. Gone Girl’s satire is witty, often funny, but Fincher’s film is also firmly rooted in the state of the times. Even Nick and Amy have experienced the economic crash and suffered as a consequence. It’s this ‘here and now’, this near perfect encapsulation of twenty-first century relationships and societal pressures, that will keep audiences returning to Gone Girl time and time again. The dangers of snap judgements in the age of Twitter and the twenty-four hour news channel, along with the pressure to massage public perception of our own lives, works almost as a companion piece to Fincher’s The Social Network. Rather than asking whodunit, perhaps the most pertinent question Gone Girl asks is, who are we?
VERDICT: ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ 5/5
Certificate: 18
Running Time: 149 minutes
UK Release Date: 2 October 2014
Images: © TM and © 2014 Twentieth Century Fox and Regency Enterprises
Good review. This movie’s crazy, but man, it’s so much fun. I can’t even argue against that.
Glad you enjoyed this one Dan. It does take some pretty interesting turns and leaves you with lots to think about!
Awesome review, awesome flick. That’s all I have 😉
Great to see you enjoyed this one Jackson!
Really well-written review! Glad you enjoyed it so much. Interesting idea to pair it alongside The Social Network – that’s actually a really interesting and very true point. Perhaps Fincher enjoys those types of stories, and exposing the media (social or not) for the damage it can ensue along with the joy it bring. I actually read the book The Social Network is based on, and it’s such a different one. Pair that with all the mystery of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and you can almost imagine that Fincher is forming a pattern of what types of stories he wants to make into films. Great post!
Than you Kristen for those kind words. I haven’t read The Social network but I’m curious about it – I loved the film. Fincher explores some very interesting themes in his work – I’d like to revisit his earlier movies again. Hopefully I’ll have time soon 🙂
Hey Natalie! You bet. The Social Network is my favorite David Fincher film. It’s just a great movie, IMO, although I think you just have to go into it knowing that what we’re seeing on screen is a very dramatic and at times, fictional interpretation of what actually happened with Mark Zuckerberg and FB. I’d love to hear what you think of it if you’re usually a fan of Fincher movies!
I absolutely loved it when it came out but I haven’t got around to giving it a re-watch since. I think Eisenberg is great. I share your reservations though with films like this, that we can never be entirely sure how accurate they are. That’s just the nature of biopics I guess.
Yeah, I also think it depends on the biopic too. The Social Network was more based on an event, whereas sometimes you get biopics focused more on a single person or family. Fincher made a clever movie that was just that – a really good movie, which not necessarily being concerned about actually tracing history and interviewing people involved. I’m sure some of that was done no doubt, especially since it was loosely based off a book that Eduardo Saverin offered some insight into. But yeah, I’ll stop rambling just to wholeheartedly agree with you, Natalie: The Social Network is a great movie!
I tried to have some fun with my wife after watching the film by continually touching my chin and walking between rooms while staring at her. However, she pointed out that we are approaching six years of marriage so we are already past the five-year hump. Oh, and while I remember it is an excellent film – my favourite of the year so far.
Ha ha 🙂 Glad you liked this one. I’m sure it will end up in my top films of the year too!
Hi Natalie! Great review here. The way this film toys with our minds and perceptions is part of the fun. It’s dark but not bleak, unlike some of his other films and the humor peppered throughout definitely helps lighten the mood. Agree 100% w/ your last line there, it’s definitely so much more than just a whodunit film.
Thanks Ruth. Yeah its not bleak, in spite of its dark themes. I think Affleck was perfectly cast here – he really helps to ease in a bit of light heartedness without destroying the atmosphere. Rosamund Pike deserves a nomination for this – hope she gets some recognition.
Brilliant review Natalie. I’m nodding along at every point. Fincher has delivered magnificently here and the film works on so many levels – as a media examination, an extreme marriage counsel, a who-dun-what mystery. Tremendous. Hope it gets some recognition in February!
Adam.
Thanks so much for your kind comments Adam! I agree, I think it deserves some recognition – Rosamund Pike is definitely worthy of a best actress nomination. Fingers crossed for awards season.
That’s a great review Natalie, and it makes me even keener to see the film now. Unfortunately I can’t really comment further having not seen it yet (and I haven’t read the book either). Hope to catch it next week.
Thanks Stu. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Great review yo, it’s very detailed and takes into account a lot of aspects that I never considered while watching the film but have definitely started to understand and recall over the last few days. I didn’t expect to love the film mainly because films that have that kind of hype normally leave me disappointed but this was again another great film from Fincher that exceeded my expectations, especially with the performance from Rosamund Pike, bloody hell she was good!
Thanks for commenting and welcome to Writer Loves Movies! I think Gone Girl will be just as good on the re-watch because there’s so much to get your teeth into. Glad you liked it and I totally agree with you on Rosamund Pike, she was amazing!
Excellent review! Glad you liked this one. 🙂
Thanks!
Wonderful review–great points about the satirical elements–and I must say, the theme of the site is one of my favorites. Love the newspaper-esque feel to it.
Thanks very much and welcome to Writer Loves Movies! I just checked out your blog this morning, it’s great! 🙂
You have really wet my whistle with this Natalie! I am DEFINITELY going to prioritise seeing this, and soon! 🙂
It’s easily in my top ten of the year so far. I hope you enjoy it!
Brilliant review! I watched the film yesterday and it has definitely become one of my favourites of 2014. I’ll be really disappointed is Rosamund Pike doesn’t get at least an Academy Award nomination.
Thanks and welcome to Writer Loves Movies! I agree she deserves a nomination – what a performance! I’m sure this one will appear in my top list at the end of the year too.
I loved this movie, definitely the best movie I’ve seen this year so far. Don’t wanna put any spoilers in my comment but the twists rocked my world.
Glad you liked this one. The twists really are well done. Definitely amongst my top movies of the year!
Excellent review! Heard so many great things about the book. Going to see it with some friends tonight. Very much looking forward to it.
Thanks. Hope you enjoyed it!
Fantastic review, and so attractive! Glad you liked it. The heart of the film is something that David Fincher makes clear and both Affleck and Pike are accustomed to with every characteristic of their performances – is that Gone Girl is in the long run, a love story, one made accurate by its contrariness.
Thanks Jack. I certainly think this one will stand the test of time, not only for its themes but the skilled way Fincher handles them.