Gone Girls

Rating: 9/10 (7 February 2016)

Boy, was I wrong about this movie.
I thought it was, in fact, about "prisoners" in prison – maybe trying to escape and I put it off for the past 2½ years, although I did want to see it and others expressed high praise for it. I just thought it was some Shawshank Redemption film about the wrongfully accused. And I did keep thinking the dad was going to play that role in the first half to two-thirds.
But, that couldn't be further from what this great movie was. It's an incredibly well-written, wonderfully acted, deep and moving thriller about two families struggling with the loss of their respective daughters. It's also a definite movie to see at bare minimum a second time.
One wonderful (to start with) Thanksgiving, two neighboring families enjoy their meal together and in a blink, two of the family's daughters vanish. When one young male is accused of abducting the girls, one of the rightfully distraught fathers makes it his mission to find his the girls by making the man talk. All the while, a police detective is attempting to find them, too, but using the law and his instincts vs. the emotional father's antics.
Probably the only downfall of this movie is that it's just too long. As much as I enjoyed the movie as a whole and all the interesting, sometimes shocking, sometimes very emotional scenes, it just kept going on and on. That said, I am SHOCKED this wasn't nominated for the many awards it deserved. The two leads themselves, Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal alone should've nabbed some competing acting nods, not to mention, best picture and screenplay.
While it's easy to compare this to the following year's Gone Girl, they're pretty separate in stories, though close to the thrill of the chase and intrigue. This one was slightly better, and it didn't have Ben Affleck, to boot. So, if you missed this one, but loved Gone Girl, you really need to see this.
Actually, just see it, no matter what. It helps if you have small children as you can sympathize, but even without kids, it's still an emotional roller coaster that's great all the way to the ending.
***
Final thoughts: I don't know why I stayed away so long. So many recommended it to me. It was my invalid vision of what the movie's plot was and hopefully I won't let that happen again. Definitely want to see this again fairly soon.