Great Actors and Concept, Poorly Executed

Rating: 7/10 (13 October 2014)

Nick and Amy Dunne seemed to have the perfect marriage. Amy is a writer, worth millions and well known for the "Amazing Amy" series she writes, an embellished tale of her life as a young girl. Amy is married to the love of her life. But her seemingly perfect marriage begins to unravel when Nick's relative becomes ill, forcing an unwilling Amy to give up her posh NY lifestyle so that the couple can move to the small town of Carthage, Missouri to help his family. Amy becomes further perturbed when both she and Nick lose their jobs and she discovers shortly before their fifth wedding anniversary that he is having an affair with a young college student. A distraught Amy then hatches a brilliantly twisted plan: to disappear, commit suicide, and frame her husband for her murder. Unfortunately, what should be the best part of the story comes out less brilliant and more banal, highly convoluted and overdone despite a nearly immaculate performance by lead actors Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike. Amy reveals a highly paranoid fear that Nick may kill her in lengthy journals that are later revealed to be mostly fake. She turns their anniversary clue game into another opportunity to frame him, forcing Nick and his sister Margo, along with Nick's lawyer, Tanner Bolt, to find Amy before they run out of time. As they search, Amy escapes, taking on a new identity. In the end, Amy meets her match in a former love, Desi Collings, whose obsessive feelings for Amy frighten her so much that she kills him in order to escape, faking the story of a captive rape victim to endear herself to the public even more and allowing her to return to Nick. A worthwhile thrill ride, one has to admit that most of Gone Girl will leave the watcher shaking his or her head.