Girl Out to Lunch

Rating: 1/10 (16 February 2016)

'Gone Girl' begins with a married man, Nick, returning to his suburban home to find an open door, broken furniture, blood spatters and his wife Amy missing. Within a couple of days, Nick's account of an idyllic marriage starts falling apart, and the local police begin to suspect he's a wife-killer. Ominous clues are discovered, while a tabloid talk-show host ramps up public hysteria with gossipy revelations supplied by one of Amy's neighborhood pals. Director Fincher encourages his audience to join this vilification of Nick as flashbacks portray the couple's troubled relationship from entries in Amy's diary.
Although the film possesses a few innovative ideas, it ends up a trashy melodrama. The big revelation arrives far too early, and the last third of 'Gone Girl' becomes increasingly far-fetched as any residual tension evaporates. The characters remain resolutely shallow, so there's little reason to care what happens to them as the tale starts drowning in a morass of plot-holes - and by the time it reaches its conclusion, an intriguing mystery has been completely transformed into farce.