Review of Gone Girl (2014) by Kyle L — 25 Nov 2015

Featuring great and outstanding performances from Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike combined with intelligent storytelling and taut suspense Gone Girl is by far one of the best films to date and is also one of David Fincher's best films to date since The Social Network and his second feature film Se7en.

Based on the popular Gillian Flynn novel of the same name Gone Girl deals with the story of the Dunne couple Nick and Amy who are in a rocky and troubled marriage. On the day of their anniversary Nick finds his wife has been kidnapped from their very own home and soon he decides to lead a search party with the help of a bunch of police officers as well.

But soon the police are suspicious about Nick and Nick soon becomes the suspect of his wife's kidnapping and Nick also soon learns the true nature of his wife and that she's planning to have him arrested by the cops and Nick must find a way to deal with his situation before he ends up in prison.

I finally had the chance to watch Gone Girl after reading the novel and of course reading all the positive reviews from critics and audiences. To my surprise, I was like wow! Gone Girl is one of the best films ever made and I truly appreciate the work done by screenwriter and novelist Gillian Flynn including some support and outstanding directing by director David Fincher.

I'm seriously not kidding when I said that this is Fincher's best film to date because it really is. It is my third favorite David Fincher movie with the first being The Social Network, second is his outstanding dark crime thriller Se7en and fourth is his new adaptation of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

I admit I read Dark Places first and then I watched the film adaptation of Dark Places since Dark Places is Gillian Flynn's second novel and Gone Girl is her third book and I love how it was adapted into a movie I enjoyed Dark Places whodunnit Mystery Thriller style including its grotesque and dark tone.

But with Gone Girl it is a huge surprise. Like the recently released Dark Places, Gone Girl was really different. Gone Girl was different in terms of tone, themes, suspense and execution and I truly believe Fincher did it in a believable way.

Anyways, let's get on with the review. What I like about Gone Girl is that this film is very intriguing from start to finish in its overall length and pacing. I was totally shocked and surprised with how the film goes.

Because in the first half it starts out as a missing person's movie until in the next half it goes into a psychological territory done in a grim and darker way because the movie will keep you guessing a lot from start to finish and it creates a lot of mysteries and it also gives the overall film a creepy vibe.

One of the other things I like about Gone Girl is that this movie is also faithful to the source novel and I was pretty surprised to how faithful the movie was and it didn't disappoint at all despite a few changes from the book since there are only a few changes from the novel(a few characters missing like Desi Collings' mother, Hilary Handy and several scenes like Andie biting Nick in the neck, tensions between Amy's parents on Nick) but nevertheless the film still has the mystery and creepy feel.

I also love the gorgeous settings of the film and it gives the film the feeling of how someone suffers from a bad day in their everyday life it has that sense of feeling of stress, loneliness and isolation at the same time.

The other things I like about Gone Girl is that the movie is also packed with several scenes that are tense and unexpected in times even though it isn't as tense as the book(The scene where Nick shoves his wife, the motel scene where Amy gets robbed by Jeff and Greta and the super gory climax where Amy kills Desi Collings) plus I love the cinematography of Fincher collaborator Jeff Cronenweth(One Hour Photo, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) which gives the film a haunting feel at the same time.

I also love the film's themes and tones and the film's tone is very haunting and dark while the themes of the film about how most evil women can be manipulative and daring towards their husbands along with husbands cheating on their wives and of course how social media threats affect a person's life makes you think about the situations that could happen in your life when you marry someone who is manipulative and very psychotic creates a sense of fear, tension and suspense and it also makes you think twice about life as well since Dark Places deals with themes about murder, troubled teens, teen pregnancy and pointing your finger at someone who you think committed the crime is very different to Gone Girl's themes and both themes are very haunting and dark because the themes in both Dark Places and Gone Girl shows the dark side of an individual's personality and how he/she can do something really bad that can cause many people to hate and point the finger at the one who is a perpetrator at first but is actually innocent in real life its by far one of the creepiest things in film history.

But the film has two real main highlights. The first thing I really like about this movie is that the film's soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross who are Fincher's collaborators from Fincher's The Social Network is very haunting, dark and in times dramatic as well which fits in the overall tone of the film.

I love how the soundtrack range from being very light in scenes where Nick wakes up in the morning to visit his twin sister Margo to very dark when tensions surrounding Nick being the prime suspect of his wife's disappearance is absolutely amazing and in my honest opinion the soundtrack felt that it was composed more by M.

Night Shyamalan's collaborator James Newton Howard because the melodic vibe of the soundtrack is so dreamy and haunting in times and it works really well. Now the acting is the second main highlight of this movie.

All of the casts did a very good job with their performances in this movie from Neil Patrick Harris as Amy's ex boyfriend Desi Collings to Scoot McNairy as Tommy O'Hara Amy's other ex boyfriend.

But out of all the casts Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike are the real stars of this movie. Both of them deliver the best performances in both of their careers. They both did a very good job in portraying Nick Dunne and Amy Elliot Dunne respectively.

Plus they are perfect for the two main characters in the book and they match the description of the characters of Nick and Amy in the novel and I look forward to what these two will do next. Director David Fincher did an amazing and perfect job with his work on this movie and the same can be said to screenwriter and novelist Gillian Flynn and Gillian Flynn did a very good job with adapting her third successful novel into the big screen and David Fincher managed to raise the bar up even higher by turning the screenplay into a dark, twisted and haunting movie combined with surprising performances from Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike and I truly can't wait to see what David Fincher will do next as well.

Overall Gone Girl is a superb adaptation of Gillian Flynn's successful novel that delivers lots of haunting moments, thrills, some creepy moments and is entertaining at the same time. This movie gets a 10/10.