A great psychological thriller

Rating: 8/10 (12 November 2014)

Gone Girl is a dark and intelligent thriller that plays to Fincher's fascinating style, brilliance of Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike's performances might be what the film is remembered for in years to come. Fincher have a predilection for dark mysteries, but more to the point, they have a shared fascination with the psychology of dark mysteries like Zodiac or Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl's central mystery isn't simply one of evidence and alibis, but rather one of impulse. The film is based on a wildly popular novel (that I haven't read) by Gillian Flynn, who also wrote the apparently pretty faithful screenplay. It is certainly a twisty tale. It starts out as one thing, turns into something else and then turns into quite another thing altogether. Whether it is the story itself or Fincher's amazingly precise handling of it, I don't know, but somehow the shifts flow smoothly and never jar — at least, they never jar more than they're meant to and always feel like part of the whole fabric of the film. I enjoyed it from beginning to end, especially the end. I felt like I was watching a long-lost Hitchcock classic. Fincher nails the tone and sustains it effortlessly for the entire running time.