2014 | Dir. David Fincher | 149 Minutes
"I'm the cunt you married. The only time you liked yourself was when you were trying to be someone this cunt might like. I'm not a quitter, I'm that cunt."
Writer (and Harvard graduate, if that helps you suspend your disbelief) Amy Elliott-Dunne goes missing, and her disaffected husband Nick quickly becomes the primary suspect in her disappearance. As the mystery unravels, it becomes clear that Amy and Nick's marriage of five years had been eroding at an alarming pace, with Nick relying heavily on Amy financially and growing increasingly resentful of his wife. Halfway through the film, as the case against Nick reaches its breaking point, it is revealed that Amy, secretly a manipulative mastermind, had elaborately staged her disappearance and apparent murder to frame Nick for being a lazy, adulterous husband.
Ben Affleck is appropriately difficult to empathize with as Nick, excellent as the smug guilty-looking uncharismatic cad. Despite efforts from his celebrity attorney, played by Tyler Perry with gusto, to improve Nick's public image, his interactions with investigators played by Kim Dickens and Patrick Fugit are awkward and curt, and his exchanges with Carrie Coon playing Nick's twin sister (and often, voice of reason) aren't much more empathetic.
Rosamund Pike delivers the performance to watch in this film, masterful and amazingly versatile as Amy, playing every single facet of the duplicitous sociopath to perfection. Flashbacks interspersed throughout the first half of the film feature stilted voiceover delivery from Pike, passages from Amy's phony diary planted as evidence in the case against Nick, running in stark contrast to the monologue she delivers at the twist in which she relishes in explaining her plan step by meticulous step. She gives a different nuanced performance to each character that comes across her path, from Casey Wilson in a great small part as Amy's naive pregnant neighbor, to a pair of white trash thieves that rob her, to Neil Patrick Harris in slightly distracting turn as her obsessed former boyfriend.
Adapted by Gillian Flynn from her best-selling novel, with stunning cinematography by Jeff Cronenweth and the signature ambient tones of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross on scoring duties, director David Fincher assembles his regular team to take the undeniably trashy source material and craft another visually sharp, visceral, and gripping work to add to his pitch black filmography. Though aided by a phenomenal performance from Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl is still nothing more than a large helping of artisanal dark chocolate cinema- lush and well-crafted but ultimately bitter and unfulfilling, not offering much in the way of intellectual sustenance.
FRAGMENTS
- Amusing quip about "fetish manga" nestled in Amy's mid-film monologue
- Tyler Perry would not have agreed to be in this film had he been familiar with David Fincher's work before his agent convinced him to take the role (Vulture)
007 CONNECTIONS
- Rosamund Pike (Miranda Frost in Die Another Day)
MCU CONNECTIONS
- Carrie Coon (Proxima Midnight in Avengers: Infinity War)
