Silk Purses and Sow's Ears

Rating: 5/10 (17 January 2018)

When beautiful thirty-something Amy Dunne disappears from her home in North Carthage, Missouri, her husband Nick, a writing teacher at a local college, falls under suspicion of her murder. It quickly transpires that their marriage was not a happy one; Nick was having an affair with a teenage pupil and there are also suggestions that he may have been a reckless spendthrift and a perpetrator of domestic violence. The case arouses considerable media interest, as Amy was the inspiration for a series of popular children's books written by her parents. Although bloodstains are found at the housed, the main weakness in the police case is the absence of a body and the investigating officer, Detective Rhonda Boney, wants to give Nick the benefit of any doubt. When, however, the police uncover Amy's diary, which reveals that she was living in fear of her husband, Nick is arrested and charged with murder.
At this point, about halfway through, "Gone Girl" appears to be turning into a standard whodunit-cum-courtroom-thriller which will doubtless end with a climactic trial scene in which the truth about Nick's innocence or guilt will be revealed. That, however, is not how the film plays out. Now comes the first in a number of plot twists: Nick is not only innocent of Amy's murder, she has not been murdered at all. She is, in fact, alive and well, having arranged her own disappearance and framed Nick for her murder. (My apologies to those who don't like spoilers. This is the sort of film it is virtually impossible to discuss without writing a spoiler.
There are some good things about this film. Rosamund Pike is good as Amy, as is Ben Affleck, an actor who in the past has not always been a favourite of mine, as the hapless Nick. There are some decent supporting performances, especially from Carrie Coon as Nick's twin sister Margo and Kim Dickens as Rhonda. David Fincher handles the direction and there is some effective satire directed at the media which take an obsessive interest in the case and an irrational dislike to Nick, whom they automatically assume to be guilty long before the police have even formally charged him. (In Britain, in order to guarantee a fair trial, we have laws preventing the media from commenting on cases which are still sub judice, but the American courts have always taken the view that such rules would be an impermissible breach of the right to free speech).
And yet this is not a good film. It is difficult to make a decent film without a good story, and that is something which "Gone Girl" conspicuously lacks. I have never read the novel on which it is based, so do not know how the story would work on the printed page, but it never works on screen. The main problem is that Amy never emerges as a remotely credible character, and the fault lies not with Rosamund Pike but with the way the story is written. Nick is indeed guilty of infidelity, but the other matters of which he is suspected, especially matrimonial violence, turn out to be inventions of Amy who wants to make her diary as damning as possible. If Amy had wanted to punish Nick by obtaining a divorce we could have understood her, even sympathised with her. What we never understand is why she should have conceived so violent a hatred for him that she wanted to see him executed for a murder he never committed, a fate most of us would not wish on our worst enemies.
Amy's original plan was to commit suicide, thereby providing the police with the missing piece of evidence, her body, thereby sealing Nick's fate, although it is never explained why she thought that a forensic examination would not reveal that she died by her own hand, thereby securing Nick's acquittal. Nor do we ever understand why she should abruptly abandon this plan and return to the husband she so loathes and despises, explaining away her disappearance as the result of a kidnapping by a jealous ex-boyfriend (whom she has conveniently murdered in the interim). The only plausible explanation is that she is completely deranged, but even as a psychological study of madness the film is never convincing. (If Amy is indeed mad, we never discover how she became mad in the first place). The best actors, and the best director, in the world will never succeed in making a decent film out of a story as badly written as this one. Silk purses and sow's ears come to mind. 5/10