Three years after his deft adaptation of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” director David Fincher is back to continue his quest to turn all of your favorite pulpy beach reads into prestige cinema, this time focusing on Gillian Flynn’s novel “Gone Girl.”
“Gone Girl” tells the story of Amy and Nick Dunne, an attractive couple in a seemingly idyllic marriage, the dark underbelly of which comes to light when Amy is discovered to be missing one morning.
To describe “Gone Girl” in any more detail would be doing a disservice to the film and Flynn’s brilliant script that manages to be ferociously tense, comically cynical and truly surprising. The precision in Flynn’s writing makes a superb companion for Fincher’s keen filmmaking style.
As Nick, Ben Affleck does a fine job inviting the audience to empathize with the husband of a missing woman, while subtly suggesting he may have dirty laundry to be aired. The supporting players are cast impeccably. Particularly impressive are Carrie Coon as Nick’s quick-witted twin sister and Tyler Perry (yes, Tyler Perry) as a slick lawyer who gets involved in the serpentine investigation.
But “Gone Girl” belongs to Rosamund Pike in the role of Amy. Pike has been doing consistently good, if under-the-radar, work for over a decade now, and here she is finally given a role that should catapult her to A-list status. Her performance as Amy runs the emotional gamut from charm to vulnerability to rage. She is captivating from the first shot of the film to the last.
In less capable hands, the soapy plot of “Gone Girl” could have devolved into an overblown Lifetime movie. But with Fincher and Flynn, the film is a thriller of the highest order.
