David Fincher (The
Social Network, Girl With The Dragon
Tattoo, Fight Club) directed the
film and it has his imprint all over it.
Amy tells the story of her relationship through a series of flashbacks,
illustrated with dim lighting and yellow undertones giving each scene an aged,
sepia-like filter. This specific use of lighting gives scenes a sense rot
and decay, as if he is cluing you in that the story before you is more austere than it appears. Fincher is
known for telling dark, thought-provoking tales. This use of light is also
demonstrated in The Social Network.
These flashbacks in Gone Girl are told with quick dialogue and wit, acted brilliantly by
each character in the film. They feel like an eerie bedtime story, narrated by
a chilling character whose sanity is completely unclear.
From the use of lighting, to the pacing of each scene, to
the specificity in the way that he denotes time, down to the font type, it is
clear that this is a Fincher film. This is his baby, his work of art. My
favorite aspect of the film happens to be the soundtrack, masterfully done by
Trent Reznor, who also created the soundtracks to The Social Network and Girl
With The Dragon Tattoo. The music is brilliant. I found certain scenes to
be so perfectly paced with what was unfolding on screen that I found myself
wondering if the music was created first; if Fincher new the tempo of the music
before he directed each scene. That is how perfectly nuanced the screenplay and
the soundtracks are. Reznor has this way of creating beats that do not sound
like anything else you have ever heard. He creates very modern, almost
techno-like rhythms that are subtle and soft enough to be a whisper - an
additional heart-thumping, narrating layer atop Amy’s ghostly murmurs.
Casting in this film is damn near perfect. Cold, unfeeling,
seemingly calculated Nick Dunne is played by Ben Affleck. Affleck is indeed the
movie star in this film and he takes up the better part of two hours of screen
time in a two and a half hour movie. This is Rosamund Pike’s breakout film
however. She owns the screen. Whether it is through her bone-chilling voiceover
to her various chameleon-like physical and mental transformations - like Rooney
Mary in Dragon Tattoo, in Pike, a star is born in Gone Girl. Affleck is good, but he is
ultimately a passive character next to Pike’s sociopathic murderess. The
question of whether or not Nick is in fact a murderer does not carry much
weight in the film. Not as much as it does in the book. What happened to Amy is
unknown, but the audience is clued in early that Amy is the one to be watched,
even feared here. We see a lot of
Nick, but it is Amy that we are listening to. Desi Collings, Amy’s high school sweetheart that never got over her is perfectly
played by Neil Patrick Harris. You dislike him and feel sorry for him all at
the same time. To see Tyler Perry play Tanner Bolt, Nick’s hotshot TV lawyer is
a delight. For an actor who usually plays a 70 year old African-American ornery
grandmother, Perry is very good. With Fincher behind the camera and Affleck as
a scene partner, Perry is finally playing in the big leagues. Good for him.
Like with all book-to-film adaptations, changes were made
and segments were skipped for the purposes of time and film continuity. It is
tough to see as a reader, but it must be done, even though it often leaves
readers feeling something to be desired after watching the movie for the first
time. After reading Gone Girl, and
seeing the film just days later, for maybe the first time, I think that the
adjustments and omissions made were better for the story. There are scenes in
the film that are more raw, more gruesome and visual than I even imagined. That
is a rarity in any book adaptation, and one I hope other readers agree with
after seeing the film.
Like in the book, there are real moments of humor
throughout. Between the ludicrous nature of both the circumstances unfolding
and the absurdity of the characters these events are unfolding around, Fincher
and Flynn successfully relay great pings of hilarity.
Flynn is saying a lot of dark, sick things about marriage,
what it means to be married, and what happens when someone knows you literally
better than you know yourself. What kind of power struggles does that type of
relationship elicit? How far can the vows “for better or for worse” really go?
At one point, Tanner Bolt says to Nick, “You two are the most fucked up people
I have ever met.” Gone Girl is a story about two people
that have lost themselves so deeply in their marriage, that the only person
they can ever be with is each other, no matter how toxic, and erosive the
relationship may be. They have actually ruined each other for all other people. The characters Flynn has created are so
absurd, that as a reader or an audience member, you cannot imagine that people
like this really exist. But then, you have to think about how many missing
person situations there are, and how many men overtime have been accused of
killing their wives. What if some of them didn’t? What if there is someone as
ruthless and as narcissistic as Amy Dunne, capable of framing their husband in
their own disappearance. Unlikely? Sure. Impossible? Based on the alarmingly
detailed writing of Gillian Flynn…No…certainly not impossible.
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