Good evening all! Well, after enjoying the wonders of Canadian weather while assisting in closing up the family cottage this past weekend, I still ended up finding myself fortunate enough to have the time left over to catch one of this now-past weekend’s most anticipated offerings. This one held a little something extra at least, in the fact that I had the utmost privilege to interview one of the supporting cast of this film, Scott Takeda, whose tale can be found HERE on my website. So, as I am commonly prone to stating….without further ado, I give you…..”Gone Girl”.
SEE THE TRAILER HERE
Directed by a true master of dark thrillers, David Fincher (“Se7en“, “Fight Club“, “Zodiac“) and based on the best-selling novel by Gillian Flynn, who also wrote the screenplay, the story starts us out the a typical morning at the residence of New York writer Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck), taking out the trash and looking less than enthused about life. However, this is no typical day. THIS particular one, Nick comes home (after making a side-trip to a local establishment, The Bar, co-owned by Nick and his bartender sister, Margo (Carrie Coon)) to find the living room in shambles and his children’s book writer wife, Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike)….gone. Contacting the police, Detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens) and her partner Officer Jim Gilpin (Patrick Fugit) arrive at the home to begin looking around for clues, one of which comes in a rather humorous form via an envelope. As all of this is unfolding and Rhonda begins questioning Nick, we start to go into multiple series of flashbacks as to how Nick & Amy met, how their relationship and marriage came about…..and ultimately how MANY things started to go wrong, creating tension and fear on Amy’s part, as we hear her perspective of things via journal entries she was writing over the several initial years leading up to now, her disappearance. As the search for Amy slowly becomes a media sensation, Nick turns to Margo for help and solace, all the while things are building and building against him, as more and more clues surface and more about Nick’s OWN past comes to light which cast him in an even MORE guilty-looking place, despite his insistence on his innocence. The pressure mounts, and the events spiral more and more out of control, as everyone from Amy’s parents, Marybeth & Rand Elliott (Lisa Banes & David Clennon), to a man with a past history with Amy, Desi Collins (Neil Patrick Harris), and two news show hosts, Ellen Abbott and Sharon Schieber (Missi Pyle & Sela Ward) all seem to doubt Nick’s denials of involvement. Turning to a known lawyer with a history of defending similar cases, Tanner Bolt (Tyler Perry), Nick puts forth a massive effort and final push to show all of them he, despite his OWN mistakes, is still the victim. And throughout all of THIS occurring, is another story that I cannot even get into, as with SO many twists and turns involved, TRULY more details would spoil everything….which as we know by now, I WILL NOT do to you, fair film goers. And so….I leave it at that for this aspect of the review.
Ok….I have to say right off the bat that this film is ONE….WILD….RIDE. I have yet to read the book, and I ALSO have to admit I am not TOTALLY sure that I would prefer to at this point. I say this because it has to be understood….this is one DARK thriller. Now don’t get me wrong….I was glued to my seat the WHOLE 2hr 25min runtime…because it just gets you SO swept up in the mental state of “WHAT is going ON??”, you cannot help but be transfixed. Ben Affleck plays Nick perfectly, I feel. He just brings that “everyman” presence to the role that truly lends itself to the type of character he’s playing here, BUT, he does so in a way that in one moment he IS the normal guy in extraordinary circumstances, and then he shows he’s CAPABLE of being just a tad scary and angry. Rosamund Pike, though, is a REAL gem in this. Let’s suffice it to say…she plays Amy REALLY, REALLY well!! The raw emotions the character portrays and goes through is just exhausting on several levels, and for Pike to play it SO powerfully…..just….WOW. I was also impressed with Carrie Coon playing Margo, as she is also someone who strikes me as being a down-to-earth individual in real life like her character here, though Margo’s loyalty to her besieged brother IS put to the test without question! The rest of the supporting players were solid, and very much fit the roles they were given. Again, I must give a special shout out to Scott Takeda, as his scene in the film, while brief and wordless, still struck me in a great way HAVING had the pleasure of speaking with him at length via the interview I did last week. A genuine person and most certainly a rising star to watch for. Visually, the film creates the atmosphere of necessary tension that Fincher most certainly was going for, and hence is a reflection of the tone in the novel. Every scene is filled with SOMETHING that just keeps you wondering WHAT is about to happen next, even if it isn’t per se anything extreme. Now since this is only my opinion, per usual, I would be remiss if I didn’t emphasize that the film is VERY adult in content, several fairly explicit sexual scenes are involved in particular that I cannot say in themselves I realized would be involved, again having not read the novel. That type of content for me is a sticking point, most likely because often, it is frankly gratuitous and not at ALL necessary to tell a great story. Here, it is more used as a…weapon shall we say and leave it at that. There’s a fair amount of language and a particularly shocking moment that took everyone in the theater aback…but I won’t lie…it SURE packed a punch to the story!! So, these elements will certainly not make the film for everyone, as anyone who has also seen any of Fincher’s previous films can attest to. But…all THAT being said…it WAS a well-done piece of filmmaking, well-acted, visually and tonally edgy to say the least and one whopper of a story!!
As always, this is all for YOUR consideration and comment. Until next time, thank you for reading!
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