Movie Review: Gone Girl

Rated R

149 minutes

Directed by David Fincher

(Note: This has been swirling around my drafts for 3 weeks. I found out I didn't hit publish when I started work on my Fury review, which is coming in the next day or so. Fail. Anyways, I saw this lying around and figured: welp, better late than never.)

Nick Dunne: "I'm the guy to save you from all this awesomeness."

^This is where Nick failed.

Even though he made valiant efforts, Nick didn't save us from all this awesomeness that is Gone Girl. He may have tried his best even after throwing curveball after curveball in form of plot twists and things of the like. But he didn't.

He couldn't save us from the score, while being slightly repetitive, that gave me chills in all the right moments, fading in from eerie to comforting all at once. 

He couldn't save us from the cast, including Affleck, Coon, Dickens, Harris, Perry, and especially Pike, who all give great performances inside of deep and mysterious characters that nobody knows what's going to happen to them.

He couldn't save us from the editing, which got 2.5 hours over and done with in a superb motion, creating unbearable tension and unease, even for someone who knew every step of the book like me. 

He couldn't save us from that awesome script, which capitalized on what seemed to be an almost impossible task to translate from page to screen, instead getting the essence of the character and focusing on the over-arching themes about media circuses and bias in reporters that can blow up anything if they so choose to.

He couldn't save us from that fracking adorable cat, who lit up the screen and made everyone confused about what the dual meaning behind it was.

He couldn't safe us from some of the most meticulously crafted dark humor that had me laughing about the statements it was making about security and the common intellect of the modern American.

Finally, he couldn't save us from David Fincher, who elevated even the most simple things and made it extraordinary. He shouldn't be one of the new Kubricks. He should be the only Fincher around.

So, Nick failed in saving us from the awesomeness. And I'm glad that he failed, even if some of the loudmouth old ladies in the theater thought it was a steaming pile of crap. Because while Nick failed, he gave us so much more to chew on and love with this film. Thanks for failing, Nick.

4/5

A-