Wick's Review

Summary - Great 4.0

Gone Girl stirs the pot, no doubt about that. Premiering amidst the NFL-stoked domestic violence uproar, this sordid thriller about a wife’s murder is akin to throwing gas on a fire. But never mind all that societal stuff, is it a good movie? Yes, a great one, albeit far from perfect.

The estimable David Fincher directing star novelist Gillian Flynn’s screenplay guarantees greatness, with a strong cast carrying it home. Ben Affleck and especially Rosamund Pike are tremendously appealing and then horribly repellent as two deeply flawed people in a bizarre marriage. OK, only one is horribly repellent. This review won’t state which one, though the movie gives up the secret surprisingly easily.

Fincher describes Gone Girl as "a mystery that becomes an absurdist thriller that ultimately becomes a satire.” Fair enough, if too shape-shifting to reach the perfection of his Fight Club or The Social Network.

Relations between the sexes aside, Gone Girl strikes clear sociological pay-dirt by playing with modern media hype, especially how mass and social media each distort reality through their own reductive lenses.

Gone Girl isn’t likely to be celebrated seventy years from now, yet it brings to mind a celebrated movie about marital homicide. Think of it as Double Indemnity for the social media generation.

Acting - Very Good 3.5

Rosamund Pike has long deserved major stardom. Playing the Gone Girl herself – aka Amazing Amy – punches her ticket. She’s exceptionally lovely as always, yet convincingly – amazingly – mercurial. Certainly this performance goes beyond what we’ve seen from her before, even though she jumped off screen in movies as diverse as An Education, Jack Reacher, Made in Dagenham and Barney’s Version.

Ben Affleck’s character has script problems: he’s introduced as a smart magazine writer and mostly carries himself that way, yet he’s constantly put down by others as a dolt. Affleck makes it work nonetheless, a testament to what a solid actor he’s become in his middle-aged acting career. Indeed he’s got a lock on the great-promise-unfulfilled roles these days.

Large & Strong Supporting Cast

• Neil Patrick Harris underwhelms as a rich sophisticate, though he does drive a great Jaguar.
• Tyler Perry impresses in the stock role of high powered defense lawyer. Perry should act in other people’s movies more often.
• Carrie Coon jumps off screen as Affleck’s twin sister and chief enabler. This is her first movie role. One suspects there will be more.
• Kim Dickens infuses the stock role of quizzical Detective with fresh energy. Patrick Fugit is oddly interesting as her associate.
• Casey Wilson seems like a familiar face as a neighbor.
• Missi Pyle is uncannily good as a Nancy Grace-like cable TV host.
• Sela Ward is also uncannily good as another cable TV host, the queen of the big get.
• Emily Ratajkowski is super-sexy as Affleck’s busty mistress. Ratajkowski is apparently the hottie of the moment, after appearing in the Blurred Lines video, amongst other fleshy accomplishments.
• Lisa Banes & David Clennon are icily effective as the parents of Amazing Amy, adept at selling their daughter’s likeness.
• Scoot McNairy cameos affectively as a man whose life was destroyed by a psychopath.
• Boyd Holbrook and Lola Kirke are also effective as a pair of lowlifes. Holbrook is also in multiplexes right now in The Skeleton Twins.

Film - Great 4.0

David Fincher is on his game for the first reel, complete with atmospherically effective music from trusted composers Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross. His camera incisively cuts between prosaic glimpses of a leased McMansion and the man-of-the-house rolling out the recycling carts, and then later the awkward gatherings at a community center and rally. Brilliant.

The film is not without its flaws however. It can’t keep its secrets, at which point it turns into a forced march through criminally vile behavior – car-wreck-interesting behavior, sure, but hardly scintillating cinema. Further, some of the dialog sounds like it’s been taken from bad drawing-room drama.

On an unrelated note, writer Gillian Flynn isn’t the only powerful woman involved in the film’s production. Reese Witherspoon is a producer.

Edge - Sordid 3.5

There will be blood. And lots of use of the C-word. And Emily Ratajkowski’s big bare boobs.

All of which made it very sad for me to see a 10 year-old at my late show, out with Mom & Dad to view some very sordid stuff while sucking on a Big Gulp. Shame on those parents.

Reality - Glib 1.6

Novelistic reality contrivances aside, Gone Girl is most interesting because of what its underlying reality might say about our society today. As to that last, many commentators are committing sociology in analyzing Gone Girl, though to do so requires spoiling the mystery. Doesn’t seem worth it to me.

We can safely call it a sordid essay on marriages of invention rather than tradition, which are the type of marriages undertaken by many elite couples, like the pair in Gone Girl. Inventing a way to live isn’t without risk, let’s just say that.

We can also say that the media in Gone Girl prove nearly as dangerous as the murderer.

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