By Brett Blake GONE GIRL is one of 2014’s best films. I feel the need to state that right up front. While it’s arguably a kind of trashy(ish) story told with a lurid sensibility, it also features top notch filmmaking on all fronts, and a slew of tremendous performances. Director David Fincher has managed to put together a dark - though hugely entertaining - tale of marital conflict, murder, and the media’s hysterical overreaction to such things. It’s a captivating cinematic experience. An adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s popular novel, GONE GIRL concerns Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck), whose wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), goes missing on their fifth wedding anniversary. Foul play is assumed, and Nick quickly finds himself the primary suspect. To go into further detail would be unwise, as one of the movie’s great pleasures lies in the way it continually unfurls unusual developments and surprises (and boy, are there surprises; there’s no shortage of moments that could potentially make the audience gasp in shock), but suffice it to say that we meet a host of characters, from Nick’s twin sister, Margo (Carrie Coon), to his ace defense lawyer (Tyler Perry), to a mysterious man from Amy’s past (Neil Patrick Harris). The most important thing to be said about the film is just how masterfully director David Fincher has pulled all the elements together. Just on a sheer filmmaking level, it’s a fantastic piece of work, and certainly right up near the top of the list of his best movies. There’s a preciseness to the film - in its stunningly evocative cinematography, in its stark and effective editing - that is trademark Fincher, and he also brings some of the gallows humor inherent in the plot developments to the forefront; not in a way that is distracting or compromises the tone, but rather in a way that compliments the tone. I’ve read some reviewers describe the film as a black comedy, and while I wouldn’t go that far (this is very much a thriller, and a terrifically tense one, at that), there is definitely some much-needed (and surprisingly biting) levity peppered into the film at key moments. For a film this bleak, it never feels like a slog, and while we can certainly credit a lot of that to Gillian Flynn’s screenplay adaptation of her own novel, it feels like Fincher took particular care to get that element into balance with the overall mood of the piece. Speaking of Flynn’s script, it should be the current front-runner for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. Having not read the novel, I can only speculate as to what she might have changed or reshaped for the cinematic version, but I can state with some authority that the screenplay is ingeniously structured, alternating between the viewpoints of both Nick and Amy Dunne in ways that reveal key details at just the right moments to land with the maximum impact for the audience. Flynn’s script presents information in a truly engaging and compelling way, and that’s purely praise for the structure, setting aside the savage and complex portrait the script paints of a marriage in the process of a total collapse. Ditto the media satire elements, which feel remarkably astute, pointed, and believable. Much of this, no doubt, is right out of Flynn’s own source material, but her inclusion of all these elements amounts to a quite deft balancing act. It’s the year’s best screenplay so far. The members of the cast - top to bottom - are excellent. Affleck is the one who gets to carry most of the emotional material, and it is one of his finest performances. His Nick Dunne is an affable guy, one seemingly carrying around a tremendous weight, and Affleck makes this man - whose actions at times could easily render him unsympathetic - worthy of the audience’s empathy. It’s a “flawed everyman” performance in the best sense, and I found myself pulling for him from the start… even as it’s unclear if he’s free of culpability for his wife’s disappearance. Playing his twin sister, Affleck gets to spend a lot of time bouncing off of Carrie Coon, who delivers a sardonic, bitter, but still - ultimately - supportive performance; she's a great foil for Affleck. Then you have the duo who just might be the secret weapons in the cast: Tyler Perry and Neil Patrick Harris, neither of whom are particularly known for their dramatic work. Perry is so good in his role as the charming defense lawyer that it’s almost shocking; he brings a level of warmth to an otherwise cold film that is welcome, and he gets what is undoubtedly the most pointed (and funniest) dialogue of the movie as he sums-up Nick and Amy’s relationship. Just as Perry gets to show a side of himself we’re not used to seeing, so too does Harris. He’s not in the movie a huge amount, but he makes a very strong impression when he does show up as a man who instantly gives off a bit of a creepy vibe, but whose rather sad, lovesick past with Amy gives that creepiness less of an “ick” factor than it might otherwise have had with a more stereotypical “weirdo” actor playing the part. And then, finally, we have the titular “Gone Girl” herself, Rosamund Pike. It is not only the performance of her career, it is also the performance of the year so far (she will certainly be a Best Actress contender, and by all rights the award should already be hers). Pike’s Amy Dunne is an enormously complicated woman - sometimes vulnerable, sometimes full of steely-eyed determination. It is here that I now arrive at a difficult point; it’s truly hard to dig in and really discuss Amy (and why Pike is so great in the role) without getting into spoiler territory, so SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH if you want to remain totally unsullied. The thing that Pike does that is so remarkable is that - when we finally get a complete sense of who Amy is and what drives her - her work is utterly bone-chilling. Amy Dunne may be one of the most repugnant and horrifying people I’ve seen in a movie in a long time (were the story not written by a woman, I could see an argument being made that this is a rather misogynistic creation, as Amy is truly every man’s worst nightmare made real in the most stark and unflattering way), and it is a testament to how effective Pike is in the role that I reacted as strongly to her character as I did. She never overplays it, never gives in to histrionics. It is a tightly-controlled performance, just as Amy controls the many faces she presents to the people around her. Give Pike the Oscar, already; she’s more than earned it with her work here. On the subject of Oscars, it would not be a surprise to see Jeff Cronenweth nominated for his gorgeous, moody, shadowy cinematography. There are some shots in this film that could be framed and displayed in an art museum, so tremendous are the visuals presented here. Also really effective is the score by Trent Reznor an Atticus Ross (director Fincher’s now-usual collaborators); it’s their best work in the scoring realm so far: occasionally chilling, but always haunting, the score fits the film like a glove. Given the direction the film takes in its final third, I can understand some people dismissing the movie as ridiculous, trashy, pulpy fluff, and I suppose I can kind of see where they’re coming from (there are definitely some outlandish things that take place down the movie’s home stretch), but Fincher and Co. pull it all off with such style and confidence that I really can’t be bothered by such criticisms. GONE GIRL is completely engrossing on nearly every level, and it is thriller filmmaking of the highest order.
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