The Gone Girl Impact

Rating: 10/10 (29 October 2014)

When Gone Girl, starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, was over and the lights in the theater were starting to slowly brighten, I was unable to get up from my seat. What had just occurred in front of me was, well incredible. I had never seen a film before that was so predictable but not. The mystery drew me in but the intensity is what kept me there. With every passing minute I was clutching my seat, widening my eyes, and waiting (very impatiently) for events to be explained. The movie starts with Nick Dunne (Affleck) starting the day of his fifth wedding anniversary to his wife, Amy Dunne (Pike), at a bar. There he talks to his sister, the bartender, about the struggles he is experiencing in his marriage. When he gets a call from one of his neighbors that his cat was outside of his house, he rushes home. There he not only finds the cat but the front door is open with nothing in the house to be found other than what looks like a struggle in the living room with a broken coffee table and flipped over furniture. When Nick goes looking for his wife in the house he cannot find her and automatically calls the police. As the police start to uncover hidden details in Nick and Amy's life, including Amy's diary of secrets, the finger is pointed at Nick. As the film goes on you cannot help but try to solve the mystery that writer Gillian Flynn set up, however the plot has so many twist and turns that it is nearly impossible to keep up. Director David Fincher uses a lot of key lighting to enhance drama and suspense. The use of color in Amy's diary to represent different entries is also very telling in the long run. This film is the best film I have seen all year and it is because of the strong and intense actors, Affleck and Pike, and also because of the production and delivery of the film its self. It was clear that every detail from lighting to sound to camera shots was put together with precision and thought. I find the scariest films to be about what could really happen in what seems an ordinary life, and for Nick and Amy, the nightmare has just begun.