You Won't Soon Forget "Gone Girl"

Rating: 10/10 (2 October 2014)

At first glance this might look like just another who-dun-it mystery thriller with a star-studded cast, but this film stands out proudly from the rest in that typically clichéd genre. The mystery unravels slowly and meticulously, forcing the audience to spend time with characters that they can rarely be sure of. Sympathies shift uneasily from one character to another and from time to time, everyone on-screen seems repulsive, but it's impossible to look away.
It plays out like Hitchcock's "Psycho" or Clouzot's "Diabolique." Like these two films, it starts with a catchy little plot that lets you ease into the world of the film as you prepare to watch a fun little mystery, but then it plunges into depths that you never could have expected. The first hour could have been pulled out into a full-length movie, but it's not content to stop there--it drags its audience into some dark, twisted places, but it never stops being completely immersive and exciting. It pulls all of that off through some subtly beautiful cinematography (as can be expected from Fincher and Jeff Cronenweth, the cinematographer), and very quiet, but intense performances. Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike both do an incredible job at giving the audience brief glimpses at powerful, but buried emotions.
Maybe not the best date movie ever made, but most certainly one of the most effective mysteries of the last few years--"Gone Girl" delivers like you can't believe. My advice is to stop reading reviews and just go experience it for yourself.