Film Review: Gone Girl

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Gone Girl. Rated MA15+ (strong sexualised violence, blood, sex scenes and coarse language). 149 minutes. Directed by David Fincher. Screenplay by Gillian Flynn, based on her novel. 

Verdict: With not a Marvel superhero in sight, it’s time for a hyper-sexualised, meltdown thriller. 

When Nick Dunne’s (Ben Affleck) wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) vanishes on the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary, the brooding Nick finds himself becoming the prime suspect in her disappearance. Detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens) does her best to remain objective, while his sister Margo (Carrie Coon) steadfastly remains his strongest ally. 

As the media (who camp outside Nick and Amy’s home), feed on the story and fuel the public’s hatred and suspicion of Nick and his motives, the circumstances surrounding Amy’s disappearance take a spectacular turn for the worse.

Flynn’s screenplay is the perfect antithesis to the lovelorn, teen angst genre that, along with characters from the Marvel Universe, have been taking up more than their fair share of time on our cinema screens lately. Gone Girl is a sharp, cynical story about the collapse of a marriage, and how seething contempt and misery can destroy what was once a perfectly contented union of soul mates.

Fincher’s (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Zodiac, Fight Club, Se7en) vision for the film matches the story’s spare, clinical brutality, and his frequent collaborator cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth, realises that grim vision faultlessly.

If Affleck’s performance as Nick is unconvincing, it is because he has done much better work than this (Argo specifically), and Pike’s Amy suffers from having to escort the story into the realm of the ridiculous.

Even though there are certainly movies that cover similar terrain in a superior manner, lovers of thrilling, and somehow occasionally hilarious, human meltdown drama will more than likely savour every horrible minute.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.