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Gone Girl might be David Fincher's battiest work—and that's saying something for a director who previously opened a film with a shot that traveled from a man's innards to the barrel of a gun stuck in his mouth.
Fincher has taken a lurid suspense yarn—Gone Girl is based on the wildly popular novel by Gillian Flynn, who also wrote the screenplay—and emerged with a film that deftly straddles the line between brilliant and stupid, a media satire and a meditation on a volatile marriage masquerading as the kind of plop you'd find Ashley Judd starring in back in the '90s. It's mesmerizing.
The film centers on Nick and Amy Dunne (Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike), a couple whose relationship is dying, though who's to blame is a matter of debate. Following Amy's disappearance, the couple's story is told in flashbacks via Nick's interrogation sessions and Amy's diary entries. According to Nick, Amy is a cold, friendless sociopath. She says he's an abusive, adulterous asshole who ripped her from New York to suburban Missouri and blew her trust fund to buy a bar with his twin sister (a spitfire Carrie Coon).
Amy's vanishing sparks a national media circus of the Scott Peterson variety, with Nick under scrutiny from neighbors and a pundit modeled after Nancy Grace. What starts as a procedural mystery, though, goes bonkers after a midfilm twist that transforms the tale from a brooding drama into perhaps the most expensive, well-acted Lifetime movie ever. From there, it's a barrage of crazy that gives To Die For a run for its money with its lampooning of media and the lust for celebrity at any cost.
Naturally, Fincher plays it straight, eschewing visual flourishes for a drab beauty similar to Zodiac, and allowing his actors to evolve amid the chaos. Affleck is perfectly cast as a schlubby hanger-on, a charismatic slimeball who earns empathy despite myriad flaws. Pike, meanwhile, is a revelation, offering a performance so complex that saying anything more would ruin the entire film.
Gone Girl will have its detractors. Its dark themes—including a marriage battle that makes The War of the Roses
seem like a tickle fight—could prove too heavy for some mystery fans,
and the subversive handling of satirical elements might be mistaken for
schlockiness. But that's Fincher in a nutshell. He's such a meticulous
craftsman you never know when he's screwing with you, which is exactly
what he does here, for 150 gleeful minutes.
Critic's Grade: B+
SEE IT: Gone Girl is rated R. It opens Friday at most major Portland-area theaters.
WWeek 2015