Cyphers and story holes...

Rating: 4/10 (29 March 2015)

"Gone Girl" is so smoothly, austerely-filmed and staged and acted, a less-seasoned moviegoer is apt to come away from it with nothing but admiration and praise (hence the many fine reviews the film has received from not only the public but also by professional movie critics). An upscale married couple in New York City hits a financial bump and ends up living with the husband's family in Missouri (in an equally beautiful home, by the way). After a few years, with the relatives dead, the couple's marriage hits a bump as well, and before long the wife is missing, their glass table is shattered and police find a mopped-up bloodbath in the kitchen. Adapting her own novel, screenwriter Gillian Flynn sets up an intriguing first-half, with the benumbed (and unfaithful) husband at first courted and then reviled by the ever-present media. But the second and third acts of the picture are where it runs into trouble, setting up plot-points and then either ignoring or stumbling over those plot-points. The final scenes (which are dragged out interminably by director David Fincher) are so static and unconvincing as to be ridiculous, mitigating his fine work in presenting this lurid tale (the picture ends up being all about presentation and little else). The central couple (Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike) are thoroughly unlikable, detestable people--and the supporting characters, with the exception of a dry female police detective (Kim Dickens) and Affleck's twin sister (Carrie Coon), are equally appalling. There is really nothing in "Gone Girl" to engage our interest except for Fincher's jagged, nasty way in telling a juicy story, but here the juice leaks out early. ** from ****