by Joseph Rossi
Let the awards season begin.
David Fincher’s Gone Girl is a film that seeps under your skin and reveals the ugly side of what seems at first to be a perfect marriage. The film stars Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike as Nick and Amy, the two really attractive players in this toxic union.
When a David Fincher film is released, it’s time for cinema fans to rejoice. Here is a director with a relatively short filmography but has managed to fill it with work that will long be remembered. Seven, The Game, Fight Club, Zodiac are just a few titles.
Nick and Amy return home to Missouri after their careers are put on hold by the state of the economy. Now if home was that comforting warm blanket, their hometown is anything but. Fincher shows us how hard times have taken their toll on Middle America. Junkies populate the shopping malls and street corners while those is better positions live is large, cold and modern homes.
One day Amy goes missing and the unsympathetic Nick becomes the prime suspect. Affleck, who does his best work to date here, plays Nick without an iota of the Affleck charisma. He is not likable here and that is what I loved about the film. No one is likeable. So as a an audience, we are always questioning motives, evidence, etc. Rosamund Pike is the true revelation here. Icy, devious, helpless, funny, she is the real deal. Expect a lot of talk come Oscar time. The film also provides great turns for Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry and Kim Dickens. Fincher always attracts great talent.
I have not read the Susan Flynn Novel so I didn’t know any of the twists and turns that she has concocted. I won’t reveal what she has in store for those who have not seen the movie. But know this, she (who also wrote the script) and Fincher have made a film is creepily effective and evocative of the time it was made. This is one of the years great movies.
