GONE GIRL
20th Century Fox
Reviewed for Shockya by Harvey Karten. Data-based on Rotten Tomatoes.
Grade: B+
Directed by: David Fincher
Screenplay by: Gillian Flynn from her novel
Cast: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry
Screened at: AMC Empire, NYC, 9/30/14
Opens: October 3, 2014
In Ingmar Bergman’s TV series “Scenes from a Marriage,” Johan and Marianne examine their relationship after ten years. They find that unlike one couple with whom they’re friendly who regularly have alcoholic-influenced fights, they do not engage in such boorish ways. But there is an aloofness to their relationship: they behave even beyond what we in the U.S. think of as stereotypically Swedish. But Bergman has nothing on David Fincher who, using a riveting screenplay by Gillian Flynn which she adapted from her potboiler novel “Gone Girl,” dissects a marriage that is not unlike that of Bergman’s duo.
Amy Eliott-Dune (Rosamund Pike) is the aloof kind in general, but a real beauty, a woman of class. Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck), her husband, seems stiff enough, so we can understand how they “found each other.” When both lost their jobs as writers in New York, they move to the sticks of North Carthage, Missouri, ostensibly because Nike’s mother was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer. Not too long after that, within the five years of their marriage, in fact, Amy is convinced that her husband ruined her life, moving her from the sophistication of New York to the banality of what she considers flyover country. While this is hardly an accusation that would prompt rational people even to divorce—perhaps they could move back to the Big Apple after his mother dies—these are not entirely rational folks. And when people say that marriage requires work, they mean this even when the people are not insane.
Divorce is not considered the solution, which it should have been, given that they two do not yet have kids. Instead, Amy disappears. Because Amy is allegedly the writer of a group of children’s books with the Amazing Amy logo and is famous, the town of North Carthage police are on the scene in the forms of take-charge Detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens) and her associate Detective Jim Gilpin (Patrick Fugit). It’s also not long before the townspeople are convinced that Amy has been murdered by her husband—after all, there’s a $1.2 million life insurance policy that he recently took out, and the living room is a mess with shattered glass on a floor covered with blood. Though there is no body, a requirement for a murder charge successfully to be brought, the police eventually put Nick under arrest where he must rely on a fancy lawyer, Tanner Bolt (Tyler Perry), to use the $100,000 retainer demands, to set him free.
While action of police and townspeople and even the national publicity that the alleged murder brings (think of the Scott Peterson case), the principal drama is in the relationship between the aloof beauty and the lunkhead husband who, notwithstanding his fascination with this blonde, takes up with a 20-year-old student from his creative writing class. Since director David Fincher is best known for murder mysteries like “Zodiac” (a San Francisco cartoonist is obsessed with tracking down the Zodiac killer), “Fight Club” (an insomniac leads a humdrum life until he co-founds an underground fight club), and “ Seven” (detectives hunt a serial killer who leaves clues based on the seven deadly sins), this picture is within his métier. In fact it’s almost an inside joke that Amy leaves doggerel in envelopes labeled “clue one,” “clue two” and so forth in a game she plays with Nick.
Besides being coached for his defense by his expensive lawyer, he receives advice from a woman who knows women, namely Margo Dunne (Carrie Coon), his sister with whom he co-owns a bar called The Bar purchased, it should be added, with his wife’s money. With a Nancy Grace TV character charging after Nick, finding him guilty based on circumstantial evidence, he needs all the help he can get, and so, it appears, does she. There’s something not right about Amy, a point that forms the principal theme of the story.
Given scripter Gillian Flynn’s input, we can be fairly certain that the movie follows the book, even to the violent subplot that finds wealthy Desi Collings (Neil Patrick Harris) pining for the college beauty he lost. “Gone Girl” is a thoroughly involving movie based on a hugely popular book, one that makes good use of every minute of its two and one-half hour running time.
Rated: R. 149 minutes © Harvey Karten, Member, NY Film Critics Online
Story – A-
Acting – B+
Technical – B+
Overall – B+
