Marriage Of Doubt

Rating: 10/10 (5 October 2014)

Don't it always seem to be that you don't know what you've got till David Fincher has taken the subject and transformed it into something so much greater than you could have ever envisioned? No? well that's just what happened with Gone Girl.
Kidnapping movies, and missing persons films are rare, I mean real ones, not like Taken but real old school kidnapping thrillers are rare, and that's because it's hard to write a film people haven't seen before, they are too formulaic even for Hollywood; women is kidnapped, man either pays ransom or not, done. So why has Fincher gone out of a limb and made a thriller kidnapping/murder mystery? David Fincher is a director who you always have doubts about, you don't mean to, but you do. You start to watch the trailers for his movies and see the promotional work and you let yourself look forward to it, then there is a moment when you wonder if it actually will be as good as you want it to be, and that's where it starts; doubt. I was wrong to doubt Fincher, he is much a master of cinema as Spielberg or Nolan.
In Gone Girl David has given us a unique gift that won't be soon forgotten, he has made a compelling and unexpected thriller that holds us in the palm of it's hand for the full (close to) 3 hour run time.
Gone Girl is the only film this year that I would call "addictive" because on you start watching, you can't stop, not until the final credit passes you by. The film is pumped with so much adrenaline that you dare not look away in case something crucial happens in the seconds where you blinked. Here is a movie that is confident in it's won abilities and that's a plus.
With David Fincher directing you always knew the film would have a level of confidence to it, and once the cast was announced the matter was settled, Gone Girl was going to be a movie to watch out for, and it didn't disappoint. The interesting thing about Gone Girl is that looking at it now I can't imagine a single combination of actors or directors that I would have improved the movie, everyone is set in their perfect position.
You know a lot of people laugh at Ben Affleck but for the life of me I can't think why, he is a talented actor who has brought out a wide variety of roles much like his counterpart Matt Damon, both are established men who's body of work speaks for itself but yet still people laugh. They won't be laughing at the end of Gone Girl, because in this film Affleck truly found his inner demon. Because the key to the movies success is that Nick Dunn is not a likable man and is surrounded by other unlikable people, but all of them accept his wife. Amy is perfect in every way.
Rosemond Pike portrays Amy in what could be a career defining performance, I think in truth Gone Girl is much like Vertigo, it is a film that redefines what our previous conceptions where of actors, Fincher uses our own prejudgements against us. It is so beautiful.
Gone Girl is a sophisticated thriller that keeps you guessing right up until the final climax, David Fincher is the new Hitchcock, and this is the movie that proved it.