Many moviegoers have come to recognize director David Fincher for his unpredictable storylines in movies such as “Seven,” “Fight Club,” and “Zodiac.”
Fincher is at it again in an adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s best-selling novel “Gone Girl,” which topped the box office last weekend with earnings of $38 million.
While “Gone Girl” has the feel of a Fincher movie—an ominous musical score, startlingly violent scenes, and did-he-just-do-that plot twists—audiences will leave disappointed if they expect to see the dramatic shots and detailed sets that have characterized his previous films.
Rather, “Gone Girl” uses the insincerity of its major characters to show the false faces we wear in relationships and illuminate the stupid melodrama of modern media. Perhaps, unintentionally, the film even supports traditional marriage.
Ben Affleck plays Nick Dunne, bar-owner and self-proclaimed salt-of-the-earth Missouri boy. His laborious rendering of the character and overall discomfort make it look like Nick is putting on an act throughout the movie, which parallels Flynn’s original construction of the character in the book. (Disclaimer: I did read the book, but not of my own volition).
Minutes into the movie, Nick’s wife Amy (Rosamund Pike)—New York socialite and inspiration for the fictional children’s book character “Amazing Amy”—has vanished. Only bloodstains remain, plus a set of clues Amy left for Nick to lead him to his fifth-anniversary present, all of which make Nick look like the prime suspect.
As The New Yorker put it, the musical score sounds like “the wah-wah pedal of Satan” in several quintessential Fincher moments in which the violence involving Amy is shockingly graphic and makes you squirm in your seat.
The ensuing investigation led by detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens) points to Nick as the killer. Popular opinion mounts against Nick, a Scott Peterson look-alike who comes across as a lug-headed and unapologetic killer.
Yet the simplest answer is not always the correct one, and Fincher, following the pattern in the book, tells part of the story through Amy’s diary. By going back in time and providing a dual narration of events, Fincher deliberately misleads viewers as they watch Nick and Amy’s marriage slowly devolve.
While Amy comes across as cunning and manipulative, Pike’s portrayal of the character is cold and callous to the point where she comes across as phony and fake. Similar to Affleck, however, her poor acting encapsulates and lends credibility—intentionally or not—to the character as it parallels Amy Elliot’s relationship with Nick: we get the feeling that Amy’s never quite her real self in front of Nick, which causes marital troubles.
To avoid prison and delay the trial, Nick hires Tanner Bolt (Tyler Perry), a lawyer in the mode of Johnny Cochran, to help him piece together a plausible story of what happened to Amy. A weird subplot involves Desi Collings (Neil Patrick Harris), an old high-school flame of Amy’s, and develops almost as an aside and feels like a distraction from the rest of the narrative.
The success of the movie, aside from its plot twists and emphasis on the femme fatale, hinges largely on the fact that Fincher causes the average viewer to scorn sensationalist media. The audience quickly learns to hate and feel superior to local dimwit Noelle Hawthorne (Casey Wilson), as she represents the majority of people who blindly listen to Ellen Abbott (Missy Pyle), a Nancy Grace-like TV personality in the movie.
Despite the feeling at the beginning of the movie that Amy and Nick are trapped in a loveless marriage, they refuse to divorce and would seemingly kill one another before giving up on their marriage. As a result, the movie posits a bizarre and seemingly unintentional defense of traditional marriage and a very literal interpretation of staying together “till death do us part.”
As dark as that sounds, it’s a message that makes this a date-night movie worth seeing for the serious couple.
