Gone Girl

It was with a vague air of trepidation that myself and my good lady Claire entered the cinema to finally see Gone Girl, about a month after its initial release. You see, it was also about a month after putting up the film's poster in our bedroom, its blue-grey hues fitting perfectly with my better half's chosen colour scheme. This, as many of you will have no doubt already noticed, is a worrying prospect to be dealing with for the better part of thirty days. What if the film's shit? What if Fincher, having already (in my view) misfired on a number of recent occasions, has felt the need to throw another slice of unnecessary cinema our way? What then for the befram'd one-sheet, what then?! Certainly neither of us were going to have it hanging there like an unexpected wall-based piss stain any longer if the film didn't reach - nay, exceed - our lofty expectations. Thankfully, it did.

(I guess I could conclude this review now, all of you safe in the knowledge that it's a) good, and b) our wall remains satisfyingly geek-chic. But I'll elaborate regardless.)

Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) wakes up the morning after 4th July celebrations to find his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) gone (the clue's in the title - and in the date, if you want to be really clever). An established children's author, 'Amazing Amy' (coined after her semi-autobiographical creation) soon becomes the focus of a Police and media circus after Nick reports her missing. Though not before clues to her disappearance - both visual and literal - are laid out for the viewer and Nick to find: spatters of blood in an otherwise spotless kitchen; a strange air of detachment from Nick that the tabloid media soon pick up on; a blatant act of infidelity that suggests all was not quite so well at Chateau Dunne. But then again, neither Nick nor Amy are reliable narrators - both of them have things to hide, as so many of us do, whether we like to admit it or not. You can take it as read that there's more than a few narrative twists to be mined from both Nick and Amy's duplicitous ways.

In a way, Gone Girl could be deemed the ultimate date movie. A well-worn cliche and somewhat odd for a film that is arguably anti-marriage (or anti-relationship, or anti-ever-becoming-involved-with-anyone-in-any-capacity). But if you've ever felt the natural strains a relationship can place on a couple after any significant period of time, Gone Girl magnifies them to grand guignol proportions and throws them back in your face, jugular blood and all.

Any couple worth their salt will be able to appreciate how easily problems can escalate if they're not addressed, and as such revel in the delicious madness that slowly unravels as Gone Girl's protagonists ballet towards a beautifully twisted, self-inflicted conclusion. In the same way that Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut plays with secrets, lies and all the grey areas in-between when it comes to middle-class monogamy, Gone Girl lays a potboiler narrative veneer over what is essentially a meticulous look at two people trying (and failing) to make a marriage work. One of them may or may not be a psychopath, but every long-term relationship has its issues, doesn't it?

Whilst there are never any 'OhMyGodThisFilmIsAmazing' moments, as there are arguably many of in Fincher's earlier work (it's virtually impossible to escape the long shadow cast by Seven and Fight Club), Gone Girl is a film that stays with you. It practically begs you to chew over what you've just seen, for it to overcome any perceived pulpy origins and blossom as the hours and days go by. It could easily be deemed throwaway, much like The Game and Panic Room in Fincher's oeuvre - Hitchcockian tribute acts that are expertly crafted but nothing more than candy floss fluff. Indeed there's more than a whiff of Hitchcock to Gone Girl, the devious nature of both men and women writ large on a silver screen canvas (Vertigo springs to mind, though that may be far too high a compliment).

But it's much, much more than the sum of its parts. Gillian Flynn's script adapted from her own novel is far cleverer than it first seems, lulling you into a false sense of vomit-inducing security that a whimsical, annoyingly cloying couple who have the cutest of meet-cutes (it is, quite literally, sugar-coated) could ever be hiding so many demons, right to the (very) bitter end. And in the same way that Eyes Wide Shut ends on an abrupt note, the camera focused tight on Nicole Kidman's face as she suggests her and Cruise "fuck" as a way to brush all their sins under the carpet, so too does Gone Girl - Rosamund Pike puts in a stellar performance throughout, but finishes proceedings off with a gaze aimed directly at the audience, leaving the story beautifully hanging in mid-air.

It was telling when someone behind me in the cinema quietly uttered "Oh" as the credits started to roll, neatly-packaged endings so commonplace that the very idea a story could be left unresolved being tantamount to lunacy. But all credit to Flynn and Fincher for pulling it off. And for allowing our poster to stay in place, of course. I'm sure they'll both be pleased.