Gone Girl

Courtesy of 20th Century Fox, Regency Enterprises, TSG Entertainment.

While it didn’t get a lot of nominations this year, I found that “Gone Girl” had to be the first film that I watched for this series. I actually bought the book at Costco and speed read through it in a couple of days just to see the movie in time for Oscar season. The adaptation, from the Gillian Flynn book of the same name, was movingly perfect in its choices, poignancy, and mood (Probably because Flynn also wrote the screenplay.) It captured the fear of being alone, the intimacy of marriage, and the driving force of insanity.

            David Fincher is a legend of modern filmmaking, especially when it comes to his thrillers. Past thrillers include “Panic Room,” “Se7en,” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” all of which have gotten our pulses thundering and heightened our senses. In this beautiful rendition, of this amazingly terse story, Fincher puts sensory detail above all else. The score (Trent Reznor) makes us hyper focus on everything that is happening. The cinematography puts all this strangeness in stark focus against the suburban landscape, which is often dotted in modern poverty. The camera movement is minimal and long shots often linger on faces made stone, or are collapsing in on themselves, as are many of these characters eventually do.

            After watching the film I was really disappointed that it didn’t garner more award nominations, especially for Best Picture and Best Director. It wasn’t a surprise that Affleck did not receive a nomination, not because he wasn’t phenomenal as the philandering husband, Nick Dunne, but because this was Rosamund Pike’s movie. Even though the film only got one nomination, which was for Pike’s performance in the category of Best Actress, I wouldn’t be surprised if Pike wins. This role seems perfect for her, as she switches between a soft spoken wife, determined to hold onto her marriage, and into a sociopathic predator, intent on destroying everyone that gets in her way. Hopefully Pike will get offered more roles of this caliber in the future, because it’s easy to see her staying in the limelight after this awards season.

            While the runtime is about two and a half hours the pacing keeps things moving so fast you won’t even notice. The original format of the book wove together three separate parts and created a layered story that seemed unfilmable, or at least would create frisson when it was eventually adapted. Thankfully Gillian Flynn adapted the screenplay from her book, (and was not nominated, sadly enough) and only made minimal changes from her source material. The ending stayed the same, which I was also thankful for, as it was such an amazingly unique choice, and made Pike’s performance that much more layered and showed the deep insecurities of Amy Elliott Dunne.

            Every aspect of this adaptation holds the same unexpectedness of the book, including the ways in which Fincher obscures facts from the audience (and therefore from characters), the eerie setting, and the brilliant casting. Every character is a suspect, everyone is the murderer, and also no one is. It’s a very complex story, and one that was perfect to make into this kind of creepy thriller, which Fincher is overly proficient in perfecting.

I haven’t seen all the other contenders, but I can safely say that this film definitely deserves all its praise, and its nomination is warranted.