Gone Girl review

GONE GIRL:

AN INTELLIGENTLY CRAFTED, GRITTY, AND CHARACTER DRIVEN DRAMA WITH TWISTS AND TURNS EVERYWHERE!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** 1/2 out of 4

20^TH CENTURY FOX

Ben Affleck stars as Nick Dunne searching for his missing wife in David Fincher’s Gone Girl

            Academy Award® nominated director, David Fincher (Fight Club, The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) returns with his latest film based on Gillian Flynn’s best-selling novel, Gone Girl. I have not read the book before seeing this movie and honestly I’m glad I didn’t because as a movie on its own, this is an incredibly well-executed film with complex story arcs, character development, twists around ever corner, it really blows your mind.

            Ben Affleck (Argo, The Town) and Rosamund Pike (An Education, The World’s End, Pride and Prejudice) star as Nick and Amy Elliot Dunne, a married couple who have been living together for quite some time and are happy, right? Well, that is until one night when Nick comes home from work and realizes that his loving wife has gone missing and everyone thinks he killed her.

            Soon the police get involved, led by Detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickins-Things Behind the Sun, Thank You For Smoking, The Blind Side) who investigate the disappearance of Amy, along with an ex-lover (Neil Patrick Harris-How I Met Your Mother, Harold & Kumar trilogy), and a 20-year-old college student (Emily Ratajkowski). Before Amy went missing she left some clues for Nick and the police that may lead to her return, so Nick, Rhonda, his sister, Margo (Carrie Coon), and a district attorney (Tyler Perry-producer: Precious) must find all the clues and uncover the mystery behind Amy’s disappearance.

            Overall, Gone Girl is a very solid film, not just an adaptation of the book, but even if you’re going in as a moviegoer, there is a very strong chance you will come out very satisfied. Now even though I didn’t read the book, I did talk to some people after the movie who have read the book about what was changed or altered and from what they have said, this is a very faithful adaptation and it can even throw in a few surprises for everyone whether you read it or not.

            This is up there with The Social Network and Fight Club as one of my favorite David Fincher films, he really knows how to draw you in to the story and most of his films left audiences and critics satisfied and Gone Girl is no exception. Besides Fincher, Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck really knock it out of the park as Amy and Nick, both of them are written very well and they both have dark secrets that will certainly get you attached to the characters and you will want to know what’s going to happen to them in the end.

            I won’t dare give away any twists or plot elements, it’s a movie that you have to see to understand, trust me it’s a better option than listening to me talk for a few hours. So if you’re a fan of the original book or a fan of David Fincher, you’ll most likely enjoy Gone Girl, just make sure you don’t perfectly know the story before seeing the movie, it’s a lot more fun when you read a book a few years ago and you haven’t read it ever since and you come into the movie without remembering everything that happened.

            It’s a movie with twists that I’m sure M. Night Shyamalan wishes he could do, but there are only two geniuses who can execute these twists in an intelligent way, Fincher and Flynn.