Gone Girl (2014)

Gone Girl (R) - Review

"Little Red Lies"

A seemingly happy man one day finds his wife missing and himself as the most likely suspect in her disappearance.  As the blood-thirsty media and local police begin digging through his trashcans and personal baggage, the husband tries to piece together what happened to his marriage and keep his life in David Fincher's film adaptation of the popular novel Gone Girl.

Leaving the icky gender issues aside (the story not only reeks of feminist empowerment but also misogynist feminine tropes but lets not get into that can of worms), the main bone of contention with Gone Girl is that it's main characters are so unlikable and frankly unbelievable in their motivations by the end.  The situations and drama are tense and fraught with peril thanks to master filmmaker David Fincher's visuals (Fight Club) and aided by Trent Reznor's low-key edgy music.  In fact, if it wasn't for the constructive Fincher-ness of the film it might have been a complete dud.  It's the creeping dread of a marked man, of the competitive cat and mouse games, the fear of a woman scorned that fuels this film, which consequently further stokes the gender bias fires (the ones that we aren't talking about).  Rosamund Pike (The World's End) delivers a wonderfully chilling performance as Amy Dunne and is the center piece to the whole movie, but is it enough?

What is this movie anyway?  Besides being a series of professionally crafted and lovingly lit images created for our mutual entertainment?  Gone Girl's plot is, to it's core, a Revenge Porn for and by women, troublingly fused with victimhood fantasies and lousy with grrrl power nonsense (not that there's anything wrong with that).  Luckily the performances are top notch (particularly the side characters like Tyler Perry adding some easy charm); even Ben Affleck comes across well while simultaneously managing to be utterly loathable dim-bulb man of the house Nick Dunne ("he likes to sit around and play Playstation??? what a looooser right" the film half heartedly sneers but still fits Affleck's smugness to a tee).  The story's veins are blood-filled and yet oddly soulless, much like Neil Patrick Harris' sacrificial lamb of a character, just aching to be spilled,  It's almost as if Fincher himself wasn't that enamored with the source material and if anything it reminds one most of Fincher's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, for Gone Girl too seems to have a European sentiment to sex & violence while moaning over America's obsessions.  But the sheer artistry on and off screen still make it not only watchable but somewhat enjoyable (not just the movie but Affleck too, surprisingly), but the muddled messages and questionable choice of ending (it is thematically on-point but also completely ruins its own credibility, because no no, no wasn't going to talk about it, shutting up) will leave this Girl Gone and hardly missed.

6.5 Novel uses for Wine Bottles out of 10 (GOOD)