Review of Gone Girl (2014) by Amasa G — 24 Oct 2016

I guess I should stop being surprised at what David Fincher is able to achieve while at the same time basing his movies from airport fiction. I guess I'm glad he decides to improve upon/tackle the mediocre and pandering rather than re-hash the brilliant novels that every already likes.

I have to admit, I didn't want to see this movie. Like every other David Fincher movie, the previews are thrown at you like the production company bought their add space at Cotsco, and are assembled as hastily (I still remember the ever blood curdling Children's choir rendition of "Creep" that you had to sit through every time you saw a preview for The Social Network). I've learned, at least by now, to look at the director's name, and as with this movie, I usually see David Fincher's name and hate myself for having to go see such a predictable movie.

From the previews, here's honestly how I thought this movie was going to go: Open with press conference with grumpy female cop and smiling, dapper Ben Affleck while he effortlessly navigates the media and makes himself out to be such an obvious "deceptively likable" guy. Cut to flashbacks of his life together with his soon to be deceased wife where Ben Affleck has not-totally-outlandish-but-still-over-the-line interactions with his wife and yet we still encounter probably alternatives to the assumed narrative of "Ben killed her, and it wasn't an accident". I figured we would go back and forth between these probably alternatives and the assumed narrative and there might even be a twist at the end up we'd probably end up with "here's exactly how and why he did it". She'd still be the victim in the end, although we might all secretly believe that she deserved it a little bit, but still the cop is fighting for "Justice" and ends up cuffing him or shooting him in the end. Either in his dying breath or hist last words before being locked away forever - he'd perform some dumb "cold logic" speech that's supposed to get us off our moral center by how much sense it kinda actually makes (except it doesn't).

I'm happy to report that this is not how the movie went. They kind of go that way for a little while but they start shaking things up pretty soon. Ben Affleck's performance is everything it needs to be (nobody is really interested in his character anyway). It's Rosamund Pike (wut..) that really steals the the spotlight (I've always wanted to say that) - her performance is like a beautiful fusion of the icy hidden intelligence of Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lector and the all dead inside delivery of Keanu Reeves' Mr. Anderson (My name...is Neo....). Tyler Perry shows up and doesn't put on a dress or talk about having all of these middle class marital problems, which is really everything that I can ask from Tyler Perry.

Another thing is the definitely fantastic music, again Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, which ultimately is half of the brilliance of my most favorite ass-clenchingly intense murder scene of all time.

See. this. movie.