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Movie Review: Gone Girl...Too Far Gone

Posted: 10/01/2014 5:36 pm EDT Updated: 2 hours ago

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Gone Girl is a thriller that exposes the ugly side of a marriage gone wrong. It is a chilling account of a distraught husband looking for his missing wife, Rosamund Pike, who portrays Amy Dunne. Ben Affleck plays Nick Dunne, a spineless, milquetoast of a celebrity husband who is a creative writing teacher with financial problems. When suspicion focuses on him and that he may be involved in the sinister kidnapping or murder of his wife, he gradually becomes undone as you wonder more and more about his guilt. His twin sister Margo Dunne (Carrie Coon) commiserates with him. Kim Dickens plays Detective Ronda Boney who manages to keep cohesiveness to this fragmented film. Dickens holds back her thoughts with cautious facial expressions which add mystery and keep your emotions on the edge. Director David Fincher, known for his direction of Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Fight Club, in an interview about his film's male-female relationships said, "The men are not really present." Nick Dunne is not really present in this movie. To reveal any more about this plot is to ruin any suspense.
Much drama is attached to Amy Dunne's disappearance, and in the end this film is like a soufflé gone bad. The plot is made of sharp, manipulative turns. Assumptions are made, then you discover you were wrong as you witness a savage indictment of marriage.
Shades of Presumed Innocent hover over this best seller as does a portrait of mental illness.
Neil Patrick Harris is miscast as a love interest. He is supposed to be in love or in lust with Amy Dunne, but instead of sparks flying in the bedroom, they fizzle on the wall to wall. Rosamund Pike is the girl who has gone or is gone. Her face is perfection. It has a frozen, almost chiseled, look much like sculptured faces with too much surgery, but she has had none. Her looks possess a coldness that is essential for Amy Dunne. Ms. Pike ironically or not so ironically was cast while doing a film in Scotland over Skype. She communicated with director Fincher over cell. Problem was the only cell tower in her area of Scotland was on the top of a hill. Her casting was dependent on cold weather and rare, impersonal technology which director Fincher used to his advantage to cast a cold heartless Amy Dunne.
But it is Tyler Perry who plays lawyer, Tanner Bolt, hired by Nick Dunne who holds this film together. Mr. Perry has a smooth wit and sense of truth that make his scenes flow with humor.
I was disappointed with the conclusion of Gone Girl which makes it appear that writer, Gillian Flynn, ran out of ideas. I ran out of the theater in disbelief of the praise heaped on this humdinger of hot air.
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