Fincher's finest work since Zodiac

Rating: 9/10 (16 February 2015)

David Fincher has made a career of showing us his extremely dark vision of the world in which we live. Even his films that don't call for such an approach, such as 2010's exhilarating story of the forming of Facebook, The Social Network, are infused with a grimness that combines clever editing, flawless cinematography and a twisted score (here by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) to achieve its purpose. Gone Girl, an adaptation of the best-selling novel by Gillian Flynn (who also adapted it for the screen) is no exception. It's seemingly formulaic tale of a girl gone missing starts with all the familiar genre tropes, but soon turns into something infinitely more contorted, unsettling and thought-provoking.
Academic underachiever Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) returns home to find his coffee-table smashed, a blood smear in his kitchen, and his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) gone without a trace. He's generally a laid-back sort of guy, but his lethargy soon puts him under suspicion by investigators Detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens) and Officer Gilpin (Patrick Fugit). A media frenzy soon descends upon him, as his inability to act appropriately in front of the prying cameras and the mounting circumstantial evidence leads to a social media witch-hunt. Support from his twin sister Margo (the excellent Carrie Coon) leads to ridiculous allegations of 'twincest', so Nick is forced to reach deep into his pockets to hire superstar defence attorney Tanner Bolt (Tyler Perry).
Around the half-way mark, a major twist is revealed. It isn't that hard to figure out, but this isn't the point. It is merely the next stage of Flynn and Fincher's dark vision of the sanctity of marriage. Peppered throughout the early scenes are flash-backs involving Amy's romance and eventual marriage to Nick, with Amy's narration of her diary entries providing the memories. It's here that Fincher toys with us the most, placing doubt into the reliability of the narrator, causing you to question our belief in everything we see. But this is no cheap narrative trick. It's been said that Gone Girl has the power to break up couples, and with the way the movie places doubt into audience's mind as to how much they truly know their partner, it's not difficult to see why.
For an actor who has experienced a difficult time at the hands of the press of late - until he reinvented himself as a director (and an Oscar winning one at that) - Affleck surpasses all expectations and puts in the performance of his career. He is perfectly suited to a character who is in no way totally likable or even sympathetic - he cheats on his wife and has become a layabout due to money troubles) - but his mixture of smugness and disillusion makes him a perfect and easy target for the witch-hunters. But the film belongs to Pike. A brave choice given that she's mainly used in supporting roles, she is a mixture of the beautiful, intimidatingly intelligent, and just plain terrifying.
As the credits roll, you may be staring open-mouthed at the screen trying to figure out what the hell you have just witnessed. One shocking burst of violence especially jolts the film onto another level. The film stayed with me for a long time after, and it seemed implausible, glossy and almost like a soap opera. But Fincher pulls apart the idea of the happy, all-American family in a similar way to David Lynch. It may all be smiles and expensive lunch dates on the surface, but if you dig deeper, you may just find something horrifying. It's a commentary on America's tendency to put people on a trial by media, the loss of privacy due to social networking, the laughable idea of the 'nuclear family', and just a bloody good story to boot. This is Fincher's finest work since Zodiac (2007).
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