A heartwarming romance for the whole family!

Rating: 7/10 (6 October 2014)

Never have I been badgered so hard to read a book in my life. It's amusing how bookworms crawl out of the woodwork when a film adaptation of their beloved book comes out, defending the art of reading as if film is the enemy. And to be honest, I think most of them are full of hot air. And they miss the point. Comparing a film to a book is like comparing a yacht to a private plane; Sure the literal purpose and end result are the same, but the means and the experience between Point A and Point B are built to appeal to different tastes. Besides, if you compare the two you'll end up faulting the yacht for its inability to fly....
Of course, it helps that Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl adapted by the novelist herself, making it mostly true to the book. Gone Girl is the dark, twisty, neo-noir tale of a suburban man Nick Dunne (Gigli's Ben Affleck) who is thrust into the spotlight after his beautiful wife Amy (ex-bond girl Rosamund Pike) disappears one day. It's cut-and-dry murder mystery stuff until suspicious clues are discovered, hinting Nick may be the guilty party. And his less than normal antics in the wake of his wife's disappearance don't help either. Did he do it? What happened to her?
More on Flynn's script and story later. Fincher is in his element here. And if you don't know what that means, it means Gone Girl is a perfectly cast (yes, even Tyler Perry and Barney Stinson), darkly toned, sharply spoken, agonizingly suspenseful foray into the scum of white-collar America. The performance from the cast is phenomenal, everyone in front of the camera absolutely nailing it, especially Rosamund Pike and Carrie Coon. The camera-work is vintage Fincher; he keeps things up close and personal, giving us a choking feeling of intimacy with the depraved story. With a lack of wide- angle shots, Fincher uses quick, calculated camera cuts to point your attention exactly where it needs to be. A lingering mind is not an option here.
Taken at surface value, it can seem like a Godsend to have the screenplay for a film written by the author of the novel the film will be based on. Yet it's gone wrong more times than not, because it is extraordinarily difficult to jump between storytelling mediums, regardless of your talent in either one of them. But Gillian Flynn's adaption of her own novel is the best screenplay-by- the-author I've witnessed. It's suitably dark, intriguing, ambiguous and witty, but it still isn't the best it could have been. It lacks flow, instead of the seamless buildup of suspense it was capable of. Gone Girl has jarring tonal shifts that abruptly up the suspense, and misplaced punch lines sprinkled throughout that snap you out of the trance the story puts you under.
The remainder of my criticism remain so small and nigh-on- insignificant, they pass at pretentious rantings of a wannabe film critic with deluded with the hollow satisfaction of smearing an otherwise incredible film. But I can assure you my size 10.5s remain firmly on the ground. Gone Girl does not have the gut-wrenching heft, or hyper-concentrated precision of best thrillers of its kind. In fact, especially when compared against Fincher's other work, Gone Girl gives off a mainstream vibe that is slightly off-putting. A vibe that gets more apparent after the mid-film climax. And, while 90-95% of the film has Fincher's discernible directing style and feel, there are moments where Gone Girl looses it's way and feels generic. Again, I'm nitpicking here.
Gone Girl is a brilliant, twisted masterpiece of a film. Flynn's script exploits your threshold of what you're willing to put yourself through, drags you through hell, and still doesn't make you regret taking the tour. In fact it's so amazing I needed two paragraphs just to explain what keeps it from perfection. Such is the quality of films in the league Gone Girl is in that perfection is the benchmark. Gone Girl is an achievement in cohesive filmmaking, once again proving what makes a film immortal is not a standalone feature, but when every element of filmmaking rises in unison to the same level of brilliance. Fincher, you son of a bitch, you've done it again.