The eagerly anticipated adaption of Gillian Flynn’s 2012 novel Gone Girl (actually adapted by the author herself) deals with the topics of perspective, marriage and the way in which mainstream media can distort public opinion. Under the playful direction of David Fincher, who has directed blockbuster hits that include Seven and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the audience is inundated by contradictory opinions and facts, leaving us second-guessing ourselves every ten minutes as the cast of Gone Girl pave a way through a realm of deception and death.
On the fifth anniversary of his wedding, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) returns to his home in Missouri to find the front door open, a glass table theatrically smashed, small blood splatters in the kitchen and his wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike) missing. Amy, the inspiration for a book series written by her parents entitled ‘Amazing Amy’, is something of a national treasure, which leads to her inexplicable disappearance, along with the suspect crime scene, becoming a priority for the police, and shortly after, the media. As both parties look further into the circumstances that led up to her vanishing act, it becomes clear that their marriage was not all that it appeared to be. Told through a combination of past extracts from Amy’s diary and Nick’s present perspective, we witness how the Dunne marriage was quickly unravelling long before the unfortunate event of her disappearance, marred by redundancy, debt and infidelity. As these details become public knowledge, it isn’t long before the finger of suspicion points towards Nick. In a day and age where every blunder of a person in the public eye is critically analysed by rolling media, Ben Affleck’s cool and collected character goes down like a lead balloon in this emotionally charged situation, and his public image goes from ‘emotionally distant but presumably distraught husband’ to ‘skin-crawling grinning sociopath’. In a manner similar to the Madeline McCann case in which Kate and Gerry McCann found themselves subject to relentless and malicious suspicion and scrutiny after the disappearance of their three year old daughter, Nick’s situation demonstrates the all-dominating influence of the media and how its sometimes unsubstantiated leaks and information can cause public opinion to swing from one extreme to another.
The deliberately paced tale highlights that you never truly really know what thoughts and feelings may be running through another’s head, even someone you may have pledged to spend eternity with. Pretence and personas are key to the core of Gone Girl as even supporting cast, Tyler Perry who plays hotshot lawyer Tanner Bolt and Carrie Coon who takes on the role of Nick’s twin sister, Margo, constantly remind Nick that it is important to be aware of how you come across in public opinion. For example, it’s not entirely socially acceptable to grin next to a picture of a ‘Missing’ poster of your wife at a press conference. However, when it comes to putting on a show for another’s benefit, Amy takes the cake as it becomes clear that she feels that she has been pretending to be something she is not all through her marriage; she made herself into a ‘Cool Girl’, someone likeable and hot who loves sport, has sex with her man whenever he wants whilst maintaining a slim size 2 body. Everything is a performance, with the audience only able to see occasional glimpses of the true selves of certain characters.
The actors are wisely cast and complement one another well. The dry and wry humour from Perry and Coon balance out the severity of Kim Dickens who embodies the sombre though sympathetic detective Rhonda Boney, whilst Affleck manages to present a character who is simultaneously likeable and sinister, a tightrope that is not easy to walk. However, the stand-out character of the film is Pike who gives an utterly electrifying performance as a woman who hides a vastly different life to the apparently idyllic life she shares with her husband. As Amy, she toys with the emotions of the audience, never truly letting us into her inner world, making her the epitome of aloof and unknowable despite the entire storyline being centred on her.
A considerable number of today’s mass-produced films tend to fall into the camps of either ‘Generic Hollywood Romance’ where girl meets boy, unfortunate event befalls couple, couple work through problem and realise they loved one another all along, or ’90 minutes of almost senseless violence’. Gone Girl is a most-assuredly welcome change from this pattern as this 149 minute psychological thriller will take you through possibly every emotion you’ve ever known – amusement, fear, revulsion and shock to name just a few. Whilst far-reaching at times, the sleek and stimulating plot also manages to touch upon real issues, particularly those found within modern marriage, leaving you both reeling and reflective long after you’ve left the cinema. Through this exhilarating and powerful adaptation, Gillian Flynn and David Fincher graciously allow us to be flies on the wall, listening to what he said, what she said and drawing our own conclusions.
Sources
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/oct/05/gone-girl-review-two-different-readings-modern-marriage
http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/entertainment/reviews/a30147/gone-girl-film-review/
http://badassdigest.com/2014/10/03/gone-girl-and-marriage-in-perspective/
http://www.mccannfiles.com/id371.html
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Edited by Sam Carey