First rate

Rating: 9/10 (3 October 2014)

Nick (Ben Affleck) comes home to find that wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) has disappeared and there are signs of a struggle. Or so he tells police. As events unfold in real time and flashback, we discover that there is more to this than meets the eye, that Nick has been less than Frank, and that it begins to look increasingly as if Amy is no longer alive as Nick's trial by media begins.
That synopsis gives you what you get in the trailer (and this movie has been particularly heavily trailed). It is fair to say that the trailer teases but does not spoil, and that is my attitude too, because this film does not deserve to be spoiled. After the first 40 minutes or so it goes in some directions which, for me, were completely unexpected, and I loved being confounded by a film which had appeared superficially to be a routine murder/disappearance movie. It is not, and this film gives us one of the most memorable movie monsters (in a non-horror sense) for many years.
The story unwinds at some leisure – the film is two and a half hours long – with a number of intertwined strands (the disappearance, what lies behind it, the police investigation, the role of the media, the relationship between Nick and his sister, to name but several). All the players are excellent, but Affleck is first rate, and Pike shows astonishing range and delectable buttocks. I'm not sure which I liked more.
This film is thoroughly recommended.