Review of Gone Girl (2014) by Dangerfar — 09 Oct 2014

A solid mystery/suspense thriller, Gone Girl keeps you guess up until the very end. Even when the cards are on the table it's not easy to see where the story will take you. Fincher masterfully brings the threads of the tale to tension 15 minutes in and holds that tension throughout the 2 and a half hour movie, rarely letting up or giving reprieve.

The performances of all involved are more than competent. The actors here are all more than capable of holding the suspense and adding their nuances. Nothing stand out here, no one should be getting any best actor/actress nominations, but they carry the movie well and keep outrageous characters mostly believable.

I say mostly because some turns are a bit difficult to stomach. Some character motivations and actions seem out of place, and there are a few fairly large plot holes that aren't explained, and presumably the viewer is just supposed to assume to chalk these up the "Well it's a movie, maybe they did this or this." I personally don't mind making these leaps sometimes. They make the movie less impressive, but don't completely ruin the experience, though I'm surprised they don't ruin it for more people.

There's also little substance here worth taking away. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, though a lot of the hype seemed to dress this movie up in thinking man's clothes, holding the promise for some unmasking of life in some degree, or at least contemplation of it. However once the movie stripped to its core it was revealed to be just another suspense thriller. Certainly carefully crafted with unique and intriguing contours, and it performs its function of instilling doubt and unease throughout. But that is pretty much all that it's good for.