Read the book first

Rating: Null/10 (15 October 2014)

Read the book first, as this movie works as more of a companion piece than a true stand-alone story.
In some ways the movie is an improvement over the book, particularly the tighter last act, but in other ways it loses some of the rationale for some of the irrational behavior.
The acting overall is fine. The peripheral characters succeed better in the film, as they were never fully fleshed out in the book and really come to life in the movie, but the main characters, perhaps intentionally, left me feeling uninvolved and almost disinterested.
Very few films can improve upon source material, and this really isn't one of them. Gone Girl certainly isn't a bad film, but not a great one, and veers a bit too closely to a Lifetime movie feeling, rather than an immersive dark psychological study or even a true popcorn thriller.