Cast: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Tyler Perry, Neil Patrick Harris
Rating: ****
In the beginning of Gone Girl, we hear Ben Affleck’s voice asking the most important questions of a marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? What have we done to each other? The first image we see on the screen is that of a woman’s head, a blonde, who plays Affleck’s wife. When the head turns we see a beautiful face. We see the head first because it’s the most intriguing character of the film, while the face the most deceiving. At the end of the film, you wish you had asked the question Affleck asks initially. Looking at his wife’s head, he says “I imagine cracking open her head, unspooling her brain, trying to get answers.” All throughout “Gone Girl”, a sincere and faithful adaptation of the eponymous novel by Gillian Flynn, I kept wondering what was running in the head of Amy Dunne. If you’d ask me, I think, the film is about the fate of Amy’s head. How far would a woman go to save her marriage? The answer to this question lies in Amy’s head.
On Nick (Affleck) and Amy’s (Pike) fifth anniversary, the husband returns home to find his wife missing and there are signs of a struggle. He calls the cops and soon a missing person case is filed. Both Amy and Nick are successful writers, who fell in love and got married. The initial years were wonderful with amazing sex (they make out in a public library), love and fondness for each other. But the love fizzles out soon and they fight over silly reasons, like most people do in their marriage. As police start investigating, we learn more about Nick. It’s strange that he doesn’t know about his wife’s best friend, her blood type and what she does mostly at home. He answers these questions with some uncertainty and that automatically makes him the prime suspect.
About Amy, we learn from her diary, narrated as flashbacks that alternate with Nick’s story. As we follow her story, there are moments we feel sorry for her. You are hooked by her story and at some point, pretty creeped out too. In one scene, she tells Nick to not push her to be the nagging wife she doesn’t want to be. And when she’s forced to be that woman she doesn’t want to be, she does the ‘unfuckingthinkable’. It’s tough to explain about it without giving away crucial details, so I prefer not to talk about it. Rosamund Pike aka Amy is brilliant as the sociopath wife, a control freak, who will send chills down your spine with her performance.
Ever since Affleck donned the director’s act, I thought the actor in him was dormant. With Argo, he proved that he can still take up a role and play it like he was destined to do it. Gone Girl gives Affleck an opportunity play a role with gray shades. There are plenty of moments where you’re almost convinced what he’s hiding or pretending to hide. He essays the negative shade with ease and proof to it is when he poses for a photograph with a ‘killer smile’ (that’s how the media promotes it) at a press conference organized to announce the disappearance of his wife.
Fincher unravels this matrimonial madness in his trademark style found in his past thrillers such as Se7en, Zodiac and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The suspense grows on you with scene by scene, dialogues playing a vital part in taking the story forward. Like The Social Network, Fincher’s Gone Girl, too, relies heavily on its dialogues. Although Gone Girl is about a marriage and the people involved in it, Fincher never lets us choose sides. While the first half focuses on Nick’s story, portraying Amy as the victim, the film shifts gears post interval and turns ugly. It gets so messy that it makes you squirm in your seats. While I agree this is not Fincher’s best, Gone Girl will still leave you in awe of the filmmaker.
Gone Girl will give husbands their worst nightmares, so beware when you watch it.
