Above: Nick (Ben Affleck) by a photo of his missing wife (Rosamund Pike) in "Gone Girl"
Almost two years ago, Ben
Affleck’s “Argo” (his third film as director) won the best picture Oscar. Yet the hard truth remains that as a director,
Mr. Affleck is merely competent; acting is where his real mastery lies. And in David Fincher’s “Gone Girl,” he’s in
front of the camera again, smiling, tearfully groveling, and enlivening a
perfectly adequate movie with fascinating, leering charm.
And how apt. In
the film, Mr. Affleck plays Nick Dunne, a Missouri bar owner whose marriage is
wheezing to a close. Nick says that his
wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), is obnoxious and “disapproving”; Amy says Nick wants
to murder her. Except we don’t really
know who’s telling the truth—all we know is that Amy was afraid of Nick, and that
now she’s gone.
So begins the real story of “Gone Girl.” After some eerily calm opening credits, Nick
returns to his ludicrously lavish house (the whole movie looks cleaner and
sleeker than a television commercial) to find a smashed table and no sign of Amy. Immediately, he calls the police, but they’re
only suspect is Nick himself. Which
leaves us asking: how much do we really know about this man? Can we trust him? Could he have actually killed the perfect and
beautiful Amy Dunne?
Full disclosure—I knew the answer before I walked into
the theater. And when I read the film’s
source material (Gillian Flynn’s novel of the same name) months ago for a book
club, it absorbed me entirely. “Gone
Girl” is a pop lit bar none—a mystery that spurs you into fits of frantic
guessing, before brutally enlightening you in an infuriating and
thought-provoking finale. It’s the kind
of book you consume late into the night, the kind that you immediately want to return
to as soon as you’ve finished.
I can’t say the same of the movie. Oh sure, it’s a capable adaptation—until a galumphing final act, Mr. Fincher keeps
the story moving at an elegantly brisk pace.
There’s just one problem. On the
page, the excitement of “Gone Girl” hinged on our doubts about Nick and Amy, on
the inevitability that at least one of them was a liar, and the exhilaration of
not knowing who to trust was part of the reading experience. Now, however, those of who have read the book
do know, meaning that the mere facts
of the story are no longer enough to sustain our interest.
Which
wouldn’t be an issue if Mr. Fincher had made an inventive and radical movie. But his “Gone Girl” is one of those drearily
loyal adaptations that reproduces whole passages and sequences from its source
verbatim, with all the delicacy and soullessness of a zerox machine. “When I think of my wife, I always think of
her head,” Nick muses in voiceover. Yeah,
we know, Nick, because you said the exact same thing in chapter one.
I’m sure some readers will be grateful that Ms. Flynn’s
novel was adapted so faithfully. But to
me, Mr. Fincher’s loyalty to the book (and Ms. Flynn’s; she wrote the
screenplay) strangles much of the life and suspense from the story. It’s the reason why watching the movie is
like listening to someone read “Gone Girl” aloud in a monotone, without adding
any fresh tension or emotion to the story.
In other words, thank goodness for Mr. Fincher’s
cast. Mr. Affleck has long since proven
himself as a screen thespian, but he’s particularly impressive here. “Should I be concerned?” Nick asks when the
police begin searching for Amy. Not a
revelatory question, to be sure, but Mr. Affleck delivers it with such
(appropriately) dopy woodenness that you immediately grasp the truth of Nick’s
character—that he himself is an actor, trying (and failing) to play the role of
the concerned and loving husband.
It’s
not meant to be a particularly likable performance, but I’m still glad it’s
balanced by a more charming turn—Carrie Coon as Nick’s twin sister, Margo. As Margo, Ms. Coon is confident,
foul-mouthed, and movingly loyal to Nick, even if she never believes in him
blindly. But towards the end of the film
when she sits on a kitchen floor and sobs, you feel something—fragile,
wrenching emotion, the kind that should have been in the movie all along.
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