Gone Girl (2014)
Certified: 18
Duration: 149 minutes
Directed by: David Fincher
Starring: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Carrie Coon, Kim Dickens, Patrick Fugit, Casey Wilson, Missi Pyle, Sela Ward
KRS Releasing Ltd
Gone Girl is one of the definite forerunners for the best picture Oscar award. David Fincher, director of some of my favourite movies like Seven (1995), Fight Club (1999) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), has adapted Gillian Flynn’s bestselling novel with great success.
Approaching the film as if he were a modern-day Alfred Hitchcock, he delivers a stylish, melodramatic, doubt-fuelled mystery thriller that has a habit of asking questions of its audiences and keeping them on their toes.
Gone Girl is difficult to peg down and is not your everyday run-of-the-mill kind of thriller. It enjoys showing the audience different perspectives and playing mind games.
At the centre of the film is the relationship between journalists Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy (Rosamund Pike). When young, Amy’s parents wrote a series of books based on their daughter and which they titled Amazing Amy. These were very successful but Amy found herself competing with the fictional character she had inspired.
Due to financial problems the couple opts to go to Missouri where Nick grew up and get into business with his sister Margo (Carrie Coon), by owning and running a bar.
Amy is not happy and is very frustrated; then suddenly she disappears on Nick’s birthday.
Suspicions fall on Nick and he is accused of killing his wife. The media attack him with relish, especially the paparazzi and female presenters, who make him the centre of a campaign. Nick’s aloof demeanour does not help him at all in his cause.
Fincher keeps his aces tight up his sleeve. He keeps the characters of Kim and Amy mysterious, hazy and very opaque
The police, led by detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens), suspect he is not telling the truth when they interrogate him. There are many clues that indicate that Nick and Amy’s marriage was not as happy as they projected it to be.
There were signs that showed that on the night of the disappearance, something happened in their house.
Fincher keeps his aces tight up his sleeve. He keeps the characters of Kim and Amy mysterious, hazy and very opaque, never being or sounding sincere. The audience thus knows they are lying, that something is not right, but one is never sure of what is not right.
Fincher is a master at this orchestration of perception, which is even more macabre as the characters seem to be capable of doing anything.
Pike and Affleck fit well into the mould the director has created. In this surreal world, where the media is such an invasive element, the two seem perfect candidates to play normal people with dark secrets. Affleck brings a physical presence to the film that is tangible yet always toned down.
Pike delivers a superb and measured performance, one which has her carrying out subtle changes that will have huge ripple effects on the film’s proceedings.
The camera grazes each scene with precision and clarity, never opting to dabble in needless hyperkinetic flair. Fincher has clarity of vision and yet the camerawork enjoys a certain attitude and urgency that transmits itself off the screen. Whatever angle he chooses – story wise and camera wise – he seems to be letting us have free rein when in fact he is leading us all to his song like an obsessive compulsive pied piper.
This is all about manipulation and in these games, there is no innocent or guilty.