Gone Girl

**POSSIBLE SPOILERS HEREIN**

What is it about a David Fincher film that always stands out? Certainly he’s skilled at creating a dark and tense atmosphere, but there’s another factor to his work: psychology. The director always takes time and manages to get into the heads of his protagonists so the audience can feel their state of mind and truly understand their reactions to events unfolding around them. This, I think, is what makes a Fincher thriller so unsettling and effective, more so than any gloomy filmmaking techniques, jump scares, or (in the case of Seven) gory violence. It’s also why he’s still good when he steps outside of the thriller genre and tackles regular characters, such as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network (however accurate that movie might have actually been). 

His latest film Gone Girl, adapted for the screen by Gillian Flynn from her bestselling novel, seems like it’s going to be a little of both, at least for a while. The eponymous girl is Amy Elliott-Dunne (Rosamund Pike), who disappears from her Missouri home on her anniversary. Her bar owner husband Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) appears detached and a little too unemotional about the ordeal, and certain subsequent events start to arise suspicion. As more revelations about Nick surface and the community turns against him, the film alternates with passages from Amy’s diary detailing their relationship falling apart. It begins to seem a little apparent where the plot is going, but it’s still a compelling narrative about the unraveling of a marriage, mostly thanks to Affleck for excellently creating the most awful husband ever put on film. Or at least he seems that way because he comes off like a slimy person you might actually encounter, not an exaggerated movie character.

But oh, do things take a sharp, brutal turn. Where we think the picture is going turns out to be dead wrong, and where it actually goes is much more horrific. It’s a jarring, shocking twist, and the story keeps building on it to crazy degrees. In the hands of some horror schlock-master or cheap thriller flick hack, it might all seem excessive, and it probably still is here. But Fincher slowly travels to each new depth like a calculating master of tension, never giving viewers even a brief reprieve, even when it ends. The film isn’t jump-from-your-seat scary, but you’re never at ease watching the horrifying plot unfold.

As much credit is due to Pike as Fincher. She at first appears so sweet and sad, her marital trials and misfortune earning her the audience’s sympathy and her husband their ire. But when the truth is revealed, she really hits it out of the park. At her worst, she’s a cold, unstoppable incarnation of pure hate and destruction (think Anton Chigurh with a principle and without the cattle gun). Unusual for a Fincher film, in her we get a peek inside the mind of the sinister force at work instead of its victims or its chasers. What’s there is truly twisted and frightening because it only makes sense to her. Never once does it seem like her actions have a justifiable point. And yet, we empathize with her. She not only manages to manipulate the other characters into believing she's the pure, doe-eyed domestic angel, but we the audience almost almost forget about everything she does and buy it ourselves. It’s a great villainous performance that doesn't fall under the “love to hate” cliché; Pike just makes you feel queasy and uncomfortable and so unclean. Affleck's character, who unquestionably does bad things and could have been the bad guy in many movies, comes off as almost saintly by comparison.

Admittedly, if you think about it, the film is much better than it should be. It doesn’t really offer any insights on marriage, abandoning the subject completely when the thriller plot gets going. Speaking of which, that thriller plot contains some things that only happen in pulp crime stories, and Amy's master plan becomes a little less realistic the more extreme it gets. The exploration of the media plays more like parody than allegory (though that doesn't make it any less entertaining, particularly Missi Pyle's nth degree riff on a certain crime show pundit). And contrary to some analyses, it doesn’t really make any great statements on feminism. As a matter of fact, taken seriously, it can arguably be considered antifeminist, if not misogynistic.

But, so what? The movie’s made with such quality, so adeptly directed and masterfully acted that none of that hurts it at all. In fact, knowing that it's not completely grounded in reality might make it a little easier to stomach. No matter how dysfunctional your relationships might be, chances are they’re not as bad as this.