A gripping mystery with plenty of twists

Rating: 10/10 (14 November 2016)

Before watching this I knew that there was a fairly major twist but had thankfully managed to avoid details and as it is so major I shall endeavour not to spoil it here even though that means not saying much about the second half of the film.
On the day of Nick Dunne's fifth wedding anniversary he is talking to his twin sister about his wife Amy and not in a good way. When he gets home there is no sign of Amy and there are signs of a struggle in the house. He calls the police and they search the house; among the things they find is an envelope labelled 'Clue One'. Nick explains that she created a treasure hunt for him on their anniversary; the first clue leads to a second then a third then Nick tells the police that he can't solve the third; he clearly has something to hide. It isn't long before the police suspect he may have murdered Amy and the more we learn about him both through seeing his actions and a series of flashbacks based on Amy's yet to be discovered diary it looks increasingly possible that he did kill her. Then half way through the film there is a twist and most assumptions are turned on their head. From then on we learn more and more about what really happened and things look worse for Nick as both the police and the wider public become more convinced of his guilt.
I'm glad that I managed to avoid spoilers as the story kept me gripped to the very end as I wondered how much of what had been revealed to the viewer would become known the police within the film. There is a dark tone throughout the film so I wasn't convinced that it would all work out in the end as one usually is in mysteries. Director David Fincher does a fine job as he keeps us guessing as to what really happened. The cast did a great job; Ben Affleck impresses as Nick; a man who at first appears innocent but clearly has secrets and Rosamund Pike excels as Amy. The rest of the cast are pretty solid too. Most of the time the sense of threat is fairly existential; whether evidence will lead to Nick being charged with murder there are some moments where the threat is very immediate and in one occasion things get shockingly violent and very bloody. There are also scenes of a sexual nature and considerable amounts of swearing that some viewers will be put off by. Overall I recommend this to anybody looking for a gripping story with some surprising twists.