Gone Girl: Review

Abduction movies can go one of two ways. Either they're fairly mediocre throughout but manage to twist your perception by incorporating a shocking, jaw-dropping finale, or they have you gripped from the beginning but then fail to accumulate all their tension into a satisfying conclusion. David Fincher's latest thriller Gone Girl unfortunately falls into the second type, but that does not mean that it is a bad movie by any means.

The film opens by introducing us to Nick and Amy Dunne (Ben Affleck & Rosamund Pike, respectively). Nick and Amy appear to be a happily married couple who seem to have everything going for them. They own a local bar, a beautiful house, and love eachother infinitely. However, on the day of their fifth anniversary, Amy suddenly disappears. Nick comes home to find the living room wrecked and small traces of blood splattered in odd places. All signs point to a home invasion or kidnapping, but Detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens) thinks that maybe the 'perfect couple' aren't so perfect after all. 

Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck)

I went into Gone Girl expecting a fairly generic sequence of events, which would eventually culminate into a shocking conclusion in which we discover that Amy is either alive or dead, and then have it explained exactly how this situation came to be. About halfway through the film however, things take a fairly dramatic turn and the movie becomes something else entirely. I can't explain precisely why - considering how important this is to the plot - but just know that you're unlikely to guess at how the movie will play-out. Needless to say, this made the film extremely more interesting than it perhaps could have been, and gripped me considerably more than other films from within a similar genre. 

However, as mentioned, the story builds and builds and then...well, to divulge anything else would be completely ruining the plot, but I wasn't quite as impressed as I could have been. The ending itself isn't bad, and in a way it may have been the most realistic ending that would have occurred, but I was hoping for far more. The film sets up an amazing premise which it fails to properly capitalise on, and although it doesn't completely squander it, much more could have been done. 

Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike)

Regardless of the story's slightly anti-climactic ending though, all of the performances in Gone Girl were nothing short of incredible. Obviously Ben Affleck as the main character Nick was captivating, but the smaller roles of certain characters were equally as engrossing. Neil Patrick Harris for example, plays one of Amy's former lovers, and although he doesn't properly come into the story until towards the end, he was still fairly amazing. In fact, I don't think that there was a single actor present who let the film down, and the same can be said for every scene within the film. Yes, the ending could have been improved upon, but up until that point I was never bored or disinterested. Even with the slow-burning introduction to the story, I was gripped from beginning to end. 

Verdict

Despite the questionable ending, Gone Girl is an incredibly interesting movie which will no doubt keep you hooked for its entirety. There's numerous bold twists and turns which keep the plot interesting and unique, and it's certainly not a by-the-books abduction movie. If you're a fan of Fincher, or even if you just like tense thrillers, then it's certainly well worth seeing. 

"Whoever took her is bound to bring her back."