Gone Girl

David Fincher’s 2014 shockingly good film version of “Gone Girl” is the date-night movie of the decade for those who want to destroy one another. This must have huge at the box office. Peter Travers said in his review, “Gone Girl is a movie of its cultural moment, an era when divorce won’t cut it if there are options for lethal revenge and aggravated assault.” In the toxic marriage of Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) and Amy Elliott (Rosamund Pike), both who are equal-opportunity liars and cheats. Or almost equal. Arguments between the genders are going to be intense.

Travers noted, “In her 2012 bestseller, Gillian Flynn made wicked sport of marriage in the new millennium. Working from an incisively shaped script by Flynn herself, director Fincher (Fight Club, Seven, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) goes right for the jugular. No one does moral rot like Fincher. And with Affleck and Pike around to put a beautiful face on Mr. and Mrs. Wrong, the stage is set for diabolical fun that stings like a person.”

Affleck’s Nick is a New York journalist jobless because of the economy and forced to move back to Missouri, where he opens a bar with his twin sister, Margo, played by Carrie Coon, and goes to seed. Travers noted, “Pike’s Amy, Nick’s socialite wife, is a trust-fund baby who’s also out of a writing career and way out of place in the Midwest.”

Travers continued, “Flynn, downsized from her trade as a writer and critic (a good one) for Entertainment Weekly, knows from the job-and-money squeeze. She structured her book as a he-said/she-said, starting on the day of the Dunnes’ fifth anniversary.” It’s also the day Amy disappears within signs of a bloody struggle at home, and Nick becomes a suspect in the alleged murder of his missing, pregnant wife. Got it? Spoilers would kill the mystery, for those not among the more than 6 million who’ve read the book.

Travers noted, “What you can know is that Gone Girl has the impact of a body-slam, hitting home in every scary, suspenseful, seductive particular. It’s a movie inferno with combustible performances.” Affleck is terrific, deflating his good looks to suggest the soulless ridges that define Nick. Travers credited, “For Pike, a Brit best known for supporting roles (Pride & Prejudice, An Education), this is a smashing, award-caliber breakthrough you’ll be talking about for years. Does she possess the role of Amy, or does the role possess her? Either way, she’s dazzling, depraved and dynamite.”

All the actors have their highlights – Tyler Perry as Nick’s shark lawyer, Kim Dickens and Patrick Fugit as the cops on the case, and a stellar Neil Patrick Harris, who miraculously finds the romantic soul in a stalker creep from Amy’s past. On the production staff, Fincher veterans, including cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth, editor Kirk Baxter and composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, cleverly escalate the boiling tension.

Travers mentioned, “Like the book, the movie begins with a man wanting to crack open his wife’s skull to find out, among other things, “What have we done to each other? What will we do?””

“Gone Girl” gives us a painting of two vipers spitting venom at each other across the landscape of a recession-broken, morally bankrupt America. Even with Fincher’s unflinching look and Flynn’s burning fun, pieces of humanity remain. Pieces where we might even see ourselves. It’s not a pleasant movie.

What a movie. I cannot believe what I had seen when I watched this. It was one of the best movies of 2014, and I didn’t see it in theaters. I saw it as a DVD rental and I was blown away. And how this left us on a cliffhanger makes me wonder are they going to make a sequel. I have not heard of anything, but we’ll see. If you have not seen this, you should. You will love this and be on the edge of your seat throughout the entire film.

Thank you for joining in on “Ben Affleck Month.” I hope everyone liked my reviews. Stay tuned next month for the next installment of “Black History Movie Reviews.”