Flynn + Fincher = terrific thriller

Rating: Null/10 (24 October 2014)

I love the title: short, punchy, alliterative. It is, of course, the title of the best-selling novel on which it is based. Now, in such cases, I'm never sure whether it is better to see the film first or read the book first. In the end, it comes down to an accident of timing. When you read a novel, you don't know if it will be made into a film; when a film is released, it is too late to read the novel first if you want to see the movie at the cinema. So I haven't read the novel and, in this case, the film screenplay - although written by the author herself Gillian Flynn - apparently has a different ending, so go figure.
Nick and Amy Dunne - played by Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike - have had to relocate from New York to Missouri and have now been married exactly five years, but this is the anniversary from hell when the girl goes and the revelations crash one upon another.
We always knew from as early as "Good Will Hunting" that, given a decent role, Affleck can act and this movie cements his return from mediocrity announced by "Argo". English girl Pike first came to our attention as a Bond girl in "Die Another Day", but always had more to offer and she is simply brilliant as the glacial beauty who calls to mind the main female characters in both "Basic Instinct" and "Fatal Attraction". The movie has somehow been classed as both feminist and misogynist, but what is undeniable is that it offers a strong and complex central female role and that is all too rare in cinema.
Nick moans: "Yes, I loved you and then all we did was resent each other, try to control each other. We caused each other pain." Amy replies: "That's marriage." But this is not your usual marriage and just how unusual becomes ever clearer up until the final moments and for two and a half hours one is mesmerised by the descent into horror. Director David Finch, who shocked us with "Seven" and mystified us with "The Game", has produced a terrific thriller than I will certainty see again. And I guess I'll have to read the book too.