MOVIES: Gone Girl – A masterful piece of filmmaking – Review

As if we needed any more evidence, Gone Girl is proof that David Fincher is a master filmmaker who cuts to the core of human existence with surgical precision. On its surface, Gone Girl is a more commercial Fincher film – adapted by Gillian Flynn from her best-selling novel – but has all the trappings of what we have come to love from the director: meditation on what it means to be human; a pessimistic-verging-on-misanthropic view of humanity; a pitch black sense of humor juxtaposed with moments of violence. While he is using Flynn’s brilliant story as his palette, the portrait he paints is thoroughly Fincherian.

Whether you’ve read Flynn’s novel or not, Gone Girl will keep you talking long after you’ve left the theater. It is the story of a man, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck), whom everyone assumes killed his wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), after she disappears under mysterious circumstances. It’s always the husband, right? The media sensation surrounding Amy’s disappearance passes swift judgment on Nick before a body is even found. The only people standing by his side are his twin sister Margo (Carrie Coon) and his lawyer, Tanner Bolt (Tyler Perry), defender of wife-murderers everywhere.

Nick doesn’t have much working in his defense. The crime scene looks like someone staged it, but is Nick stupid enough to do that? Or maybe Nick intentionally made it look staged as an alibi for someone trying to frame him. Or maybe he didn’t have anything to do with it at all. These questions are what perplex detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens) and her partner Jim Gilpin (Patrick Fugit), the two North Carthage, Missouri police officers who respond to Nick’s 911 call. Even though Nick is from North Carthage, his years in New York City – where he met Amy – make him an outsider in this small Midwestern town. To make matters worse, Nick is not acting the way a grieving husband should. Is he numb because he is so worried about his wife or is his guilt resulting in a poor public performance? Even though he maintains his innocence, there are too many questions left that Nick cannot answer.

Flynn’s meticulously plotted story is enthralling whether on the page or on screen, revealing itself slowly and deliberately like a master magician performing an illusion. If you think you know where the story is going, (spoiler alert!) you don’t. The script Flynn has written – under the guidance of Fincher – plays much like The Usual Suspects (another masterful screenplay) in how it tells a straightforward story on the surface while, in fact, giving the audience clues which when strung together lead to a shocking conclusion. For fans of the novel, Gone Girl stays unbelievably loyal to the source material. Despite the dizzying amount of detail in her novel, Flynn manages to include nearly every major plot point in the screenplay. The result is an incredibly tight and well-structured film.

Prior to Fincher being considered as the director for the adaptation, Gone Girl seemed an impossible-to-adapt project. But Fincher, as he has done time and time again, has not only paid tribute to the brilliant novel, but has improved upon it in his own unique way. The world of Gone Girl is cold – the people, the relationships, the untrusting and ever present eye of the public – and Fincher exacerbates this feeling by bathing the film in blue and white for the first third of the film. Even the camera seems to have a blue filter affixed to it as if to give the audience the feeling they are watching the action through a layer of ice.

When the story takes a sharp, punch-you-in-the-face surprise turn (no spoilers here), Fincher goes into overdrive and begins telling two parallel tales with a perfect balance and equity. We oscillate between two perspectives for the remainder of the film with Fincher behind the wheel: Tyler Durden daring Jack to let the wheel go and take whatever comes. His least ostentatious work in a long time – no CGI, no intricate tracking shots – Gone Girl is Fincher restraining himself for the sheer joy of the challenge.

Almost as important as the choice of director is the casting of Nick and Amy. Without question, Fincher chose the only two actors who could have played the parts. Though most of Amy’s lines are spoken in voiceover, we understand Amy’s personality completely through Pike’s outstanding performance. Through no more than a glance or tilt of her head, we understand Amy’s reactions to her husband, her adopted hometown and the events that befall her. Pike is mysterious and unknown and therefore the perfect tabula rasa for the character of Amy.

It is Affleck, though, whose performance will be heralded during the end of the year awards race. Affleck knows all too well the scrutiny under which celebrities are placed and the dissection which accompanies any public appearance. Affleck embodies Nick like a suit tailored perfectly to fit his body, exuding fear, anger and despondency through every pore. The most visceral and primal performance he’s given to date, Affleck proves here why he is an actor and not just a movie star.

Gone Girl is complex, twisted and darkly satirical. It’s a nearly perfect piece of cinema and everything we want from a David Fincher film.

Grade: A