Get Gone Girl

CUSTOMER REVIEW



David Fincher is responsible for one of the three or four book-to-movie adaptations that stood up to their source material, in my humble opinion. I read Gillian Flynn’s delightfully devious potboiler “Gone Girl” soon after I discovered Fincher would be taking on the project, and this book was absolutely incredible. I loved absolutely everything about it - the immaculately written and yet not particularly likable characters, the pacing, the way that Flynn was able to pull off near-preposterous plot twists effortlessly. I even loved that ending. Did Fincher do the book justice?



"Gone Girl" is the magical thing that can happen when filmmaker and author are this perfectly suited to one another. As Fincher said in an interview, "you hire the right people and you step aside." He got the right people - every last one of them.



Five years of marriage have not been kind to Nick and Amy Dunne (Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike.) After the recession took both of their journalism jobs, they reluctantly moved to Nick’s hometown in Missouri from New York to tend to his dying mother. Maybe Amy never saw herself living outside of Manhattan, maybe Nick resented Amy for her family’s money and the pre-nup he signed. On the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy goes missing. A media circus ensues, with Nick being portrayed as the main suspect. Amy’s high school ex-boyfriend (Neil Patrick Harris) and her alleged ‘best friend’ from home (Casey Wilson) manifest only to put the nail in the case’s coffin. But what really happened to Amazing Amy?



I was only able to count two or three scenes from the book that didn’t make it into the movie, in any capacity. Scenes are shortened but very few are cut outright. And that’s not to suggest that this is a scene-for-scene adaptation either. Flynn, as a screenwriter, manages to do the most important thing a film adaptation can do - to give the audience the same feeling they had throughout the book. She changed nothing and yet everything. The tone is bleak, cynical and yet bitingly funny in the darkest possible way, exactly like the book was. Those not familiar with the book will be taken aback by where this story goes, but even if you read it, you might be surprised by how taut and deliciously nasty the film is.



Affleck was not my first choice to play Nick, but after seeing him give the performance of his career, nobody else could have played it. In the book, you never knew if Nick was truly evil, or a victim of circumstance. He is constructed more or less the same way on film. And Pike, a significantly lesser-known actress, is the real treasure here. Pike understands the intensely complex character of Amy Dunne and translates her frighteningly well to the big screen. I could easily see them calling her name on Oscar night.



Fincher raised some eyebrows casting Tyler Perry and Neil Patrick Harris, well against type. It relieves me to say they both were perfect for the film. Perry does his best Johnnie Cochran while Harris is great as the possibly-evil-possibly-misunderstood Desi. Carrie Coon (HBO’s “The Leftovers”) is perhaps the real gem of the supporting cast, as Nick’s voice of reason twin Margo. Kim Dickens is also scathingly good as the detective who grows increasingly suspicious of what Nick is up to.



But in the end, it’s Fincher’s unflinching direction and Trent Reznor and Atticus Roth’s unsettling and eerie score that make the mood of “Gone Girl” everything it needed to be. Everybody is perfectly cast in the kind of thriller you hope to see once every five years or so. It’s an intense and shocking mystery and yet a hysterically funny black comedy. In the 2 and a half hour running time, I didn’t look at my watch once. In fact, I wanted to watch it again the minute I left the theater.



And, lastly, did Fincher change the book’s polarizing ending? See it for yourself.



Grade: A+