A movie that doesn't treat you like an idiot.

Rating: 9/10 (20 October 2014)

At the end of Gone Girl, the audience in the theater I was in had a solid 3 second pause of no one moving, of people just collecting their thoughts before they could start to get up and leave. That is how engrossing the film is, you get completely sucked into the alternate reality for a short while.
The most obvious thing about the film is the Soundtrack. Done by Trent Razor, the building drones create a tension you are not even conscious of feeling until the drone cuts to silence and you get a break from the intensity. In addition, the soundtrack contains many elements of noise that just add creepy insanity into the mix.
The film did have elements that it chose not to focus on. The cinematography and colors in the film are bland, but there is a nice distinction in style between Affleck's story, and that of his wife's.
The movie did a great job of giving you something more than you expected. Had the film just been about a murder mystery, it would have been OK. But since the movie contained so much more, it takes the suspense genre into new territory.
In addition, there seemed to be many red-herrings, or times when the film was pushing you to think one way, only to get jerked another direction 5 minutes later.
I did find the Wife to be an unbelievable villain. To me, she was so over the top that it took the film out of a believable world, and made it obvious you were watching a film.