Gone Girl
Composite Score: 85.11
Starring: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Carrie Coon, Kim Dickens, Patrick Fugit, David Clennon, Lisa Banes, Missi Pyle, Emily Ratajkowski, Casey Wilson, Lola Kirke, and Boyd Holbrook
Director: David Fincher
Writer: Gillian Flynn
Genres: Drama, Crime, Mystery, Thriller
MPAA Rating: R for a scene of bloody violence, some strong sexual content/nudity, and language
Box Office: $369.33 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Gone Girl is David Fincher’s film adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s novel of the same name about a man whose wife has gone missing under circumstances that increasingly point to him as the prime suspect. The film follows the basic structure of the best-selling novel on which it is based, exploring the present crisis from the perspective of Nick (Ben Affleck), while looking back at the past through narration from Amy’s (Rosamund Pike) diary, before making a turn in the middle that reveals both characters as unreliable narrators and following their webs of lies to the inevitably disconcerting conclusion. In addition to the performances of Affleck and Pike, the film also stars Neil Patrick Harris as Amy’s obsessed ex-boyfriend Desi, Tyler Perry as Nick’s morally gray defense attorney Tanner Bolt, Kim Dickens as the trusting detective Boney, Carrie Coon as Nick’s twin sister Margo, and Missi Pyle as the inflammatory talk show host Ellen Abbott. The film’s only Academy Award nomination came for Rosamund Pike’s chilling portrayal of Amy Dunne, but the film also currently sits at number 186 on IMDB’s list of top-rated movies. In addition to the film’s performances, its score, themes, and direction continue to mark it as one of Fincher’s best films.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
As a portrait of relations between genders, Gone Girl serves as a fairly bleak outlook. While I don’t think that it’s meant to be a diagnostic of the current state of affairs, I do think that the grains of truth it contains can lead to some unhealthy perceptions if not approached critically. Nick and Amy’s relationship has to be one of the most toxic ever put to film; neither of them can stand the actual reality of the other, but they refuse to give up trying to shape one another in ways that continue to strain their marriage. Their attempts to ignore or change what drives each of them crazy about the other only serves to infuriate each and drive them further apart so that, by the time any reconciliation comes, it feels like a tragic loss for both parties. This film is not a romantic comedy, nor a romantic drama; it is a romantic tragedy. In its healthiest sense, it should serve as a warning for couples that communication early and often is the key to a healthy relationship, but the most toxic and troubling interpretation of the film could lead to a belief that the only way for marriages to work is when both spouses fake it for the other because they could never actually love the true versions of each other. I tend to think that the former interpretation was Flynn’s preference when she wrote the book and then the screenplay, but with all of the film’s postmodern themes, it’s easy to see an audience taking it the other way instead.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
With Gone Girl, Fincher and Flynn have created two films in one, a true mark of success for a film with this many reveals and plot twists. The first film is the film you watch for the very first time with little knowledge of the many twists and turns that it takes. This film is the quintessential mystery thriller, keeping its audience guessing and gasping at every new revelation, engrossing because of the story and the uncertainty of it all. The second film is the one that stands out from the crowd of other mystery thrillers with decent plot twists. This is the film that still enthralls its audience on the second, third, fourth, and fifth watches with loathsome but undeniable performances, plot twists that remain as unbelievable five times on as they did the first time, and unnervingly accurate themes of gender relations and media sensationalism. It is this second film that keeps people talking nearly ten years later, that allows Gone Girl to stand the test of time, and it’s easy to see why.
When I say that Gone Girl was robbed in almost every category imaginable at the 87th Academy Awards, I mean it. Best Editing that year went deservingly to Whiplash but the nomination for either American Sniper or The Imitation Game could just as easily have gone to the flawless interweaving of timelines, truths, and untruths delivered by two-time Oscar winner Kirk Baxter. The score that combined nondescript elevator-sounding music with disconcerting electric sounds as an extension of the lies told by the film’s main characters from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross was kept out in the cold by nominations for Gary Yershon’s Mr. Turner, Jóhann Jóhannsson’s The Theory of Everything, and winner (for The Grand Budapest Hotel) Alexandre Desplat’s The Imitation Game. If you want to sit there and tell me that the screenplays for The Theory of Everything and American Sniper were more deserving of nominations than Gillian Flynn’s artful adaptation of her own novel, I will probably laugh very loud and very long in your face. Giving Robert Duvall a nomination for The Judge over Tyler Perry feels like the least surprising snub here because Perry just does a good job, but it’s not necessarily anything super special. Meryl Streep was nominated for Into the freaking Woods over either Missi Pyle’s ridiculous caricature of Nancy Grace or Carrie Coon’s emotionally grounded but impactful portrayal of Margo Dunne, and whichever one it was frustrates me equally. I also can probably see the argument against nominating Affleck’s performance over any of the Best Actor nominees in that year’s stacked category, but I’d still make the argument that he does just as good as Bradley Cooper did in American Sniper, just playing a horrible excuse for a husband rather than a tragically doomed hero. I know that Julianne Moore was overdue for an Oscar and that she’s fantastic in Still Alice, but dang it, Rosamund Pike delivers a top-to-bottom jilted lover, crazy ex-girlfriend, criminal mastermind, sexy love interest performance as Amy that might go down as one of the biggest should-have-wons in Best Actress history. I really don’t even need to go into Fincher’s snub (again) for Best Director in favor of Morten Tyldum (Passengers) for The Imitation Game and/or Bennett Miller for Foxcatcher as a make-up for his Moneyball snub. In hindsight, Gone Girl might not have been the best film of the year, but it was certainly better than Best Picture nominees American Sniper, The Theory of Everything, and The Imitation Game, but here we are anyway.
Gone Girl is one of the best films wholistically of the 2010s, with great editing, score, writing, directing, and performances that play into the film’s themes of gender and the media, all of which solidify its place among the Greatest Films of All Time. People watching this film as a proscriptive relationship advice piece will soon find their relationships suffering drastically, but it really is a phenomenal film in picking apart the unhealthy ways that men and women relate to each other in straight romantic relationships, and it does it all in thrilling fashion, as should be expected of a film directed by David Fincher. This film is currently available to stream on Max for anyone looking to watch it in the near future, and I really can’t recommend it enough.
