Chilling, twisted and fiercely intense, Gone Girl is the latest blockbuster hitting the screens this month by award winning director David Fincher.
Adapted from the bestselling psychological thriller by Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl follows magazine writer Nick Dunne, who on the day of his fifth wedding anniversary returns home to find his house upturned and his wife Amy Dunne missing. During the course of the next 149 minutes, we are taken on a tension packed ride as the couple’s tumultuous marriage is slowly unravelled and clues are revealed pointing to Nick as the prime suspect for her disappearance.
Fincher’s film features a faultless star-studded cast that remains true to the complex characters portrayed in Flynn’s novel: Ben Affleck is the seemingly laid back, young husband whilst Rosamund Pike plays the all-American, beautiful blonde house-wife.
Affleck and Pike’s on-screen relationship is electric as they successfully portray the slow decay and corrosion of a doomed marriage between two characters riddled with their own problematic pasts and personalities. Put together, Nick and Amy’s marriage is a ticking time bomb ready to explode.
Gone Girl poses a disturbing question, how well can you truly know someone, even your partner? Nick and Amy’s relationship suggests that whilst two people may work romantically, it may not be a healthy partnership.
In Gone Girl, Fincher expertly conducts scenes that leave the audience unsure whether they are real or simply a figment of Amy’s imagination. Many critics have compared Rosamund Pike’s character to that of Glen Close’s in the 1987 film Fatal Attraction as, by the end of the film, Amy has descended into insanity and is brilliantly creepy and frightening to watch.
Rosamund Pike has been praised enormously for capturing Amy’s hollow, emotionless and dead behind the eyes appearance; indicating that the ‘Gone Girl’ really is ‘gone’. It would not surprise us if she was awarded for this incredible performance come the new year.
We at Her Campus Exeter loved Gone Girl – a complex, thought provoking and unnerving story that will stay with you days after watching it. You will be gripping onto the arms of your seat as you follow the endless twists and turns of this chilling must-see thriller – where nothing is quite as it seems.