Has your familiarity with someone ever been utterly and disastrously deceptive?
“Gone Girl” tells the story of married couple Amy Elliott Dunne, played by Rosamund Pike (“Pride and Prejudice”), and Nick Dunne, played by Ben Affleck (“Argo”). Originally a book by Gillian Flynn released in 2012, it is now the material for David Flincher’s venture into a darker side of cinematography.
The film opens with scenic shots of Missouri, where all appears to be gloomy and shrouded around Nick’s sleepy hometown, North Carthage. On the day of their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick returns to his suburban home only to find his beloved wife missing. Detectives arrive, the wheels set in motion, and a manhunt for the missing Amy Elliott Dunne begins.
As the gruesome details of her disappearance unfold, the seemingly picturesque marriage of Nick and Amy unravels before the audience.
In the beginning, Nick and Amy seem to be the perfect complement to each other. The young couple’s first encounter occurs in New York, at a writer’s party. From their first date to his proposal and their first anniversary, all seems to sparkle. Amy’s intelligence, beauty and wit combine to create the All-American girl who Nick finds himself falling in love with. Her parent’s creation of a series of children’s books called “Amazing Amy” based on her childhood serve to perpetuate this image, and Nick is her charming, if a bit rugged, knight-in-shining-armor.
But good goes from bad to worse, as Amy’s diary reveals the recipes for conflict: a recession, two lost jobs, and Nick’s dying mother. Forced to move back to Missouri, Amy and Nick begin again in suburbia.
Fast forward to four anniversaries later, and this is where the real intrigue begins. As Amy winds through her dialogue of their marriage, Nick’s image quickly gets converted into the stuff of nightmares. She provides the audience with flashbacks of physical and emotional abuses committed against her in escalating frequency in their five years of marriage.
The story of Amy’s disappearance becomes national news, and Nick finds himself facing a weary and mistrusting public. Amy’s parents, Rand and Marybeth, played by David Clennon (“Criminal Minds”) and Lisa Banes (“One Life to Live”), first side with Nick. Overbearing and easily persuaded, they quickly backpedal and begin to suspect his motives.
As the plot thickens, Ben Affleck does an excellent job of portraying potential wife-killer Nick Dunne. His “villainous” good looks turn sinister as does his anger with the situation, and Amy’s “salt-of-the-Earth Missouri man” becomes increasingly suspicious in the public’s eye. Also, in Rosamund Pike’s first major motion picture role, she brings a cold and calculating edge to the unusually -poised Amy, leading audience to think she might not be all she initially seems.
The plotline takes several detours from the book, but remains, for the most part, true to course. Gillian Flynn, author of “Gone Girl” is the screenwriter, and readers will not be disappointed by character descriptions, as both Affleck and Pike do an excellent job of portraying his/her character’s darker edges.
Overall, “Gone Girl” is not for the squeamish or faint of heart. This chilling crime thriller will keep audiences on the edge of their seat until the very end. Fans of the novel will not be disappointed, as the book’s main characters and plotline are stunningly depicted, albeit a few twists. “Gone Girl” lends a new meaning to “til’ death do us part.”
