Over-rated

Rating: 7/10 (15 January 2019)

14 November 2014. I suspect why this movie is getting rave reviews and good box office turnout is due to its sustained measured suspense as a dramatic thriller where the who done it element becomes convoluted and layered with great emotional intensity as the audience is seemingly and subtly manipulated throughout the movie as to Ben Affleck's character and the apparent absence and presumed demise of his wife. Things become extraordinarily complicated that gives the audience a continuous shot of neurological brain transmitters of titillating endorphins.
One other pertinent fact that impacts my own personal experience watching this movie is that living in Utah where Susan Powell disappeared who lived in West Valley City, Utah and whose body was never been found and Josh Powell, her husband, was suspected in her disappearance and who later killed himself along with their two children. There were many parallels between this real event and Gone Girl.
But perhaps I am getting old; and watching this movie I'm reminded of Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in The War of the Roses (1989). If the movie had stopped two-thirds of the way through the movie with the first major twist, I might have really enjoyed this movie in its totality, but it continued with this odd twist that seemed like a guise for greatest as a film. Needlessly the audience is forced to watch a rather predictable sequence of events that seem creatively amazing but somehow it just seems tacked on with the appearance of genius. I can understand why this movie would seem innovative and offer up some new revelation of the human psyche not see before on the big screen.
Perhaps its just I was unfortunately lucky to begin to put the pieces of this mystery thriller together too soon, but this overly long, in places overly slow paced movie became too predictable, foreshadowing its scenes and the ending. For awhile the plot and characters were fascinating, the plot intriguing but eventually, the movie just seemed very good. Others might conclude this movie portrays a rather unique, albeit rarely seen complex characters who diverge from the ordinary two dimensional personas. While this might be true, there is something off-balance but not in aesthetic way, but detracting way. What David Fincher is striving for is one of the most difficult achievements in film directing. His effort is commendable, if somewhat unsatisfying for me. If the movie had been shot in the style and tone of say cerebral spy thriller The Russia House (1990) or Ben Affleck's The Sum of All Fears (2002), Gone Girl would have come across more in keeping with the icy, frigid psychologically tension and dramatic tone of the theme of the movie. One of the best examples of this conflicted tone might be Brad Pitt's character and performance as scripted in Interview with A Vampire (1995) or his scripted performance in the dramatic crime thriller Killing Them Softly (2012) or even Nicholas Cages scripted portrayal in The Weatherman (2005) or Daniel Day-Lewis in the drama filled There Will Be Blood (2007). Even the classic bitter sweet relational drama and alcohol-riddled theme of The Days of Wine and Roses (1962) has the oil and water imbalance that however is deliciously sweet and sour tone that this movie might have been well to have captured. Or take Nicole Kidman's harsh but memorable role in Margot at the Wedding (2007) or her role in Dogville (2004) or what happened to Brad Pitt in the superb mystery crime thriller Se7en (1995). Other edgy movie themed and uneasy but dramatic riveting movies that capture the paradoxical tone of beautiful ugliness include William H. Macy in Edmond (2006), Sam Rockwell's fascinating character in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), the dysfunctional family of American Beauty (2000), or Tom Cruise in Collateral (2004) even whose title is reflective of the dissonance of a battle where innocence is destroyed. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in director Stanley Kubrick seemed to capture both the cinematic beauty and the uneasy alliance between the unusual, fantastic in an artful and sinfully beautiful way with characters that sometimes lack in moral turpitude in his Eyes Wide Shut (1999) or take the sociological business war with its incumbent cold calculating businessmen of The Social Network (2010). Even Leo DeCaprio seemed to capture the decadent attractive sleaze character in The Great Gatsby (2013) or his performance as Howard Hughes in The Aviator (2004). What seems to be missing is the more balanced background of the development of the relationship, a better visceral sense of the characters as they evolve which is conveniently missing during the movie, except with deliberate shocking sometimes unflattering flashbacks which was seemingly achieved with one character played by Christian Slater in He Was A Quiet Man (2007). The real fault in this very difficult film is that absence of the depiction of the behind the scenes of the false facades and the real persona essences of which even the characters themselves are unaware so as to reveal the hidden pane in Johari Window.