"Gone Girl" may vanish from your mind
Gone Girl
Run Time: 149 minutes
Overall Grade: B+
The month of October has a few of the year’s highly anticipated movies coming out, including David Fincher’s “Gone Girl”. The movie follows a writer named Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) who married a woman named Amy (Rosamund Pike).
The story shows the difficulties of Nick and Amy’s marriage. On the day of their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick goes to his bar and when he returns home, sees signs of a home intrusion with his wife no longer there.
Nick notifies the police, and the police confirm that Amy Dunne is now a missing person. Amy leaves behind a diary, describing her husband as short tempered and unfaithful.
All clues on Amy’s disappearance lead to Nick, but without a body the police are unable to determine if she was murdered. Amy has disappeared with little traces to find her body.
The interesting part of how Fincher relays Amy and Nick’s sides to the story is by Nick telling his side to the detectives and Amy’s story through a voice-over reading of the diary. As the story unfolds, we find that Nick actually knows very little about his wife and Amy is more controlling than he thought.
For Affleck, this was as natural of a performance as he has ever given, but it still wasn’t up to par.
Affleck was stiff and unemotional at times where he could have been. He shows little difference between emotions of frustration and anger, but as an actor, you should be able to differentiate between the two. The film alternates between a breakneck fast pace and painstakingly slow, driving the viewer to the edge of their seat.
The score, while very effective at times, also tends to be more distracting than helpful. Towards the end, there are a few important lines that are drowned out by the monotonous tones of the background music.
The end of the film is somewhat polarizing, and the audience members will either love it or absolutely hate it. There were amazing performances from Carrie Coon, playing Dunne’s sister Margo, and Neil Patrick Harris, taking on the role of the crazy ex-boyfriend, and Rosamund Pike as Amy is a breath of fresh air in the Hollywood realm.
The editing of the film worked for Fincher, but with every new direction the film takes, it seems to get longer than it actually is. While there are things that didn’t work for “Gone Girl”, those who read the book will be pleased with the outcome.
