David Fincher’s latest, Gone Girl, is a maliciously twisted but highly refined examination on society’s fascinating with morbid topics and private lives.
As David Fincher goes through the second act of his career, the filmmaker’s knack for readapting other people’s writings and making them their own has now become his comfortable norm.
Whether it’s Robert Graysmith (Zodiac), F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Ben Mezrich (The Social Network), Steig Larsson’s (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) pen, or Andrew Davies & Michael Dobbs British TV series (House of Cards), Fincher excels at bringing other peoples words to life. Even if they have already been done, he finds ways to swim deeper into what originally appeared mundane, and laces everything with a dark, foreboding aside.
For someone with as distinct a filmmaking style as Fincher, though, it’s odd that he seems so hell-bent on adapting other people’s works to the screen. But, whatever the reason for it may be, he isn’t stopping with his latest picture: an adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s best-selling novel, Gone Girl.
On the afternoon of Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy’s (Rosamund Pike) fifth wedding anniversary, Nick comes home to find his house ramshackled and his wife missing. Soon, the police are involved and Nick’s life is the source of media frenzy. As Nick tries to find out what happened to his spouse, he gets constantly berated by seemingly everyone with one (seemingly) simple question nobody is willing to ask: Did you murder your wife?
While Nick tries to attest to his innocence, secrets and lies in his past begin to haunt him. With each passing moment, it seems like his life is going down another rabbit hole. But perhaps, as the details splurge out, not everything is quite as clear cut as it would seem.
While Fincher’s direction and keen eye has always been astoundingly astute, only a few of his movies are truly great. For the most part, they end up being just good; competently made, but not quite deserving of the word “excellence.” For every The Social Network and Fight Club, Fincher has a Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. As the opening moments of Gone Girl spurred, I have the hunch that this was going to be another film for the latter category, as everything was well done, but lacked the punch that is noticeable in all of Fincher’s best work.
Low and behold, though, as the movie progressed, that quickly changed. Having not read Flynn’s book, I could not attest that narrative trickery would entail, but I downplayed the upcoming twists and turns as likely being overhyped and of from a crowd likely too eager to be surprised (sorry, fans of the book). But—without giving anything away, and it’s hard to do with a film like this—the movie constantly finds a way to keep everything in a high-pitch boiling heat. The narrative is decidedly “airport fiction,” but when it is done this well, it’s hard not to get caught up in the fun.
While some plot elements towards the end decidedly become just a bit too convenient and manageable for its believability, Fincher’s dedication to dissecting the media and society’s morbid obsession to the dark and disturbing gives the plot its deserved attention. Much like he did in his last picture, but without its ongoing drudgery, Fincher gives what would be a fairly mundane action thriller the social and political commentary it needs to thrive in the memory bank.
It’s clear that the filmmaker is not concerned as much with how to make the plot twist and turn, but rather what results when that said twist and turn happens. And, of course how these characters react to their changing circumstances. It’s a seminarian approach that audience members should be used to from Fincher, but thrives in Gone Girl the most in Fincher’s screen presence since Zodiac.
Though, it should be noted just how darkly funny of a movie this is. I was surprised that, as the movie progressed, how much Fincher’s latest reminded me of The War of the Roses instead of something like the aforementioned Zodiac. It’s a jolting juxtaposition that actually plays in the movie benefit, adding up to its twisted enjoyment.
Even in his resurgence, Affleck has always struck me as a hit-and-miss actor. His performance in The Town played well to his acting nuances, while Argo…not so much. That said, his performance as Nick contains Affleck’s typical well-groomed class with an added bonus of mental anguish and pulls it off with good aplomb. Same can oddly be said for Tyler Perry’s performance as Nick’s lawyer Tanner Bolt, the prime source of the movie’s occasional levity and a possible justification for the actor/director’s long-winded desires to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor.
But, ultimately, this is Pike’s show, and she dominates it. As Gone Girl is one of the rare movies that gets better as it gets more outlandish, save for some choice moments towards the end, so too does Pike get more delightfully unhinged playing up the movie’s darker details. As an actress that never quite got her time to shine before this, this is a wonderful display of her range and accessibilities.
Also adding to the movie’s unsettling core is the score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, easily their most unhinging work to date. It plays with the movie’s messed-up mentalities with an unsympathetically vicious, but successfully low-key, bravura.
As a testament to both the staying power of adult filmmaking, character-driven dramas and deep-seated but thankfully not overbearing social commentary, Gone Girl is the kind of thriller you would only pray that Hollywood would make. Where characters attempt to act like adults, but also won’t sucker out on the messier punches that make the matinee pricing worth the ride.
