After reading up on how divisive book reviews were for Gone Girl, I was glad that I never picked up Gillian Flynn’s novel. There’s something about walking into a movie blind that makes life so much easier. There are some considerable time gaps in between some of director David Fincher’s more notable projects. Gone Girl is Fincher’s tenth film despite having a career spanning 22 years.
The movie centers on the sudden disappearance of Amy Elliot-Dunne, an unemployed but well-off suburban woman whose marriage to another laid-off writer has come undone. The viewer is tricked into assuming the husband has committed the crime, slowly morphing your opinion into one that blames the wife. It vacillates in between their flawed perspectives, displaying two of the most unreliable narrators in film history.
Rosamund Pike gives the performance of her career and it would be a disappointment if she was passed over for an Oscar nomination. Her Amy—Amazing Amy—is despicable and clever. The opposite of Ben Affleck’s blundering and victimized Nick Dunne. His physical presence is imposing, although he reads smaller on screen.
He is aggressive when the scene demands him to be, and at other times smartly subdued. Not only are Nick and Amy master manipulators, but the movie also speaks about the role media has in both framing and feeding misleading information to viewers, while simultaneously using the same tactics on the audience. How meta.
Fincher got it right when he cast Affleck in this role. The way his character is chastised for his public appearance—regardless of if he is being polite or nursing a temper—parallels the actor’s real life struggles from his J-Lo days of old to the recent uproar over his casting as Batman.
“I don’t get why you’re daring me to be someone I’m not,” said Amy at one point in the film. It seems that this is a line that either of them could have thrown out, as they both resent one another for trying to turn each other into the ideal spouse.
Aided by an unnerving score produced by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor—both of whom Fincher frequently collaborates with—the plot of Gone Girl is interlaced with dark beats of humor. Tyler Perry plays a celebrity lawyer that provides a great comedic lift in more serious moments. The best character by far, though, would be Nick’s twin sister and voice of reason played by Carrie Coon, she gets all the awards for her one-liners. Thought of as miscast, in the opinion of some critics, Neil Patrick Harris portrays the naïve and clingy ex who meets a Shakespearean end well enough.
A more accurate title for this film would have been How I Lost My Mind in 145 Minutes. Jaw-dropping and suspenseful, Gone Girl will transfix you from beginning to end, daring you to hold out on that pee break one minute longer.
Ranking Fincher’s Best Films
Se7en: As his films often do, Se7en deals with recurring themes of apathy, cynicism, and engaging suspense. The plot revolves around a serial killer who reads Chaucer and John Milton, modeling his brutal crimes after the seven deadly sins. Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt star as the detectives who grow obsessed with solving the case.
While it is hilarious to make fun of Pitt’s delivery of the “what’s in the box!?” line, when finally faced with the question at the stomach turning climax, you just do not want to know. I feel as if writers use the word gritty too much to describe these types of films, so I am just going to pack that nice buzzword into a box and shove it out a window. Thrilling, murky, and hopeless, Se7en is definitely one of Fincher’s best.
Fight Club: As kinetic as it is long, Fight Club follows Edward Norton’s character, a soul-sucking insomniac who finally finds the therapy he needs in an exclusive fight club that Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt again?) initiates. Oops, I guess I just broke the rule.
While it has a sense of humor about itself, it is also given to graphic violence–for example the scene in which Jared Leto (who looks unforgivably like a boyish Rutger Hauer) gets bloodied up. Fight Club definitely feels, in essence, like Se7en as Fincher’s style and voice is starting to become more realized.
I am currently unpacking the box that I recovered, staring my buzzword in the face. Feel the grit, be the grit.
The Social Network: A tale about the invention of Facebook, it stars Jesse Eisenberg as a computer hacking, scathing intellectual whose picture would be nowhere near the word humble in the dictionary. In some of his scenes, it is clear as to why he was not only chosen to be the next Lex Luthor, but also why he gets easily cast as the tool-ish fast talking nerd. While it isn’t as gruesome or dim as some expect from Fincher, it still looks beautiful and meticulously made.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: A crime drama and thriller that involves an anti-social hacker, TGWTDT is Rooney Mara’s sophomore project with Fincher. After venturing off to do Benjamin Button (more Brad Pitt!) and Social Network, this movie is like a return to darker themes. Did I mention it is also gritty?
Zhana Johnson
Senior Features Editor
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