GONE GIRL

Nick Dunne's wife Amy disappears on the day of their fifth wedding anniversary. What begins as a missing persons case for the police quickly develops into suspicions of murder; the prime suspect being the husband. The high profile of the missing person amidst the increasingly callous and awkward behaviour of Dunne fuels the rabid media's scrutiny of the situation. Did he kill her or is she still alive?

What stands out about the two main characters of Gone Girl is that you really don't know who to support. From the outset of the story its only natural to feel for the husband but empathy quickly shifts to uncertainty. A noteworthy aspect of the film is how blurred the lines between Good Guy and Bad Guy become as the tale unfolds. In fact the only constant villain is the U. S. Media and the film focuses on the media's fickle nature and how it thrives on superficial scrutinization.

Gone Girl is a rare occurrence in Hollywood in which the performance of the leading actress out-shines the work of the leading man as well as the film director. Rosamund Pike as Amy Dunne is the most memorable part of the film, she displays a range of emotions and nuances that are impressive. Ben Affleck on the other hand seems to be playing himself; from his body language to his manner of speech, Affleck does not seem to lose himself in the role of Nick Dunne. Neil Patrick Harris is woefully miscast as the former boyfriend but Tyler Perry as the defence attorney is a stroke of ingenious casting.

Certain A-List film directors in Hollywood seem to reach a position in the industry where they can get away with any trivial offering. These directors can make an insignificant movie and yet receive all the adulation of having made a masterpiece. David Fincher is undoubtedly a gifted filmmaker but the stories he's choosing these days are simply drab and lustreless. The man who gave us Seven (1995), The Game (1997), Fight Club (1999) in the past has recently given us the overhyped The Social Network (2010), the redundant The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) and now the absurdly impractical Gone Girl. The dialogue between Nick and Amy is like a graduated version of the banter between Dawson and Joey in an episode of Dawson's Creek. Every half hour of the film is akin to an episode of a cheap soap opera, where the story goes down the craziest path. The cinematography is bland and the score music is sadly unmemorable. Besides the excessive running time the biggest fault in this film is its story. Many scenes are purely nonsensical, Amy Dunne's initial motivations are conveniently forgotten, the F.B.I. in this film are ridiculously gullible and the ending tries so hard to be unique but fails because of its implausibility. The film's social commentary about relationships and marriage isn't a profound revelation either. This just probably might be Fincher's worst film to date.

Rating: 5/10

S. V. Fernando