Almost as terrible as the book.

Rating: 9/10 (11 October 2014)

It's a mistake to recruit the author to do the screenplay - they are too emotionally invested, and if they aren't known for writing scripts the disparity in quality can be obvious. Take The Exorcist III for example. Or Gone Girl.
The Gone Girl novel was a lavishly praised exercise in cryptic dialogue, high school prose, and incompetent storytelling that defies conventional formula. Unfortunately, you can only defy the formula and get away with it if you are very good. Gillian Flynn just isn't.
Her characters speak with bizarre, hyperactive energy that made me feel breathless just from reading it. It's like listening to someone recall a fond memory at a party - a memory that nobody else cares about. It's inexplicably cryptic. It's not how people talk, and you can tell that on screen Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike don't really know what to make of their lines. Their sentences are too long, too wild, too verbose. They talk like stage actors fresh out of drama school. The supporting cast are also similarly lost - the two detectives especially. The female cop is just a frustrating "loose- cannon-independent-woman/symbol-of-women's-suffrage" poster girl. She talks fast and drinks coffee - black, no doubt (Yawn). Her male partner just seems to follow her around like a lost dog and nod agreeably with everything she says - three cheers for women's rights! Down with the glass ceiling!
You might as well slap a domestic violence advertisement in the credits.
The lack of tension evident in Flynn's writing translates well to the screen. Your nails will not be bitten to fleshy stubs watching Gone Girl. More likely you'll end up filing them into neat, buffed arches out of boredom. Fincher can't elevate the inherent drabness of the source material. He, like the rest of the cast, seem to misunderstand the script. They just "don't get it." Gone Girl is one of those wrongly-praised cause celebres. People are too keen to jump on the bandwagon after learning about the *gasp* "shock twist" in the final act (that is hardly shocking, original, or interesting).
Re-watch some of Fincher's better work instead. If you've already invested money in the novel, take solace in knowing it is the perfect size for a doorstop, and about as entertaining.