Gone Girl (Fincher)

[Kurosawa Fan]

IMDB

[Kurosawa Fan]

If you read the book and enjoyed it, you're going to enjoy the film. Fincher nailed it, and it's about as accurate an adaptation as is possible. It's a lot of fun, and Affleck, Pike, and Dickens are in perfect form. The gasps and laughs in the theater just added to the experience. There was even a smattering of applause as it concluded, something which almost never happens in my area.

[TGM]

Yeah, as crazy as some of the twists are in the book, they're even nuttier seeing them play out on the screen. My audience was very vocal throughout (in a good way!), so this was a fun movie to watch with a bunch of people who didn't see any of this coming. Very faithful adaptation with a very dark sense of humor, though the only knock I really have against it was the constant fades to black to segue us into different scenes, which did give it a bit of a "made for TV" vibe, like you would see when those kinda movies fade out to commercial. But that's a minor nitpick against an otherwise pretty stellar movie.

[

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That said, since I did read the book, it was kinda hard for me to properly gauge just how effective the first half was, seeing as I was already well aware of where the story was going. I asked my friends what they thought about the first half, and they said that they had their ideas of where the story was going but, sure enough, this thing went a WHOLE other direction, so I suppose it played out effectively enough after all.

]

[Izzy Black]

I disliked this one.

[Ezee E]

Loved this one.

[Ezee E]

If you read the book and enjoyed it, you're going to enjoy the film. Fincher nailed it, and it's about as accurate an adaptation as is possible. It's a lot of fun, and Affleck, Pike, and Dickens are in perfect form. The gasps and laughs in the theater just added to the experience. There was even a smattering of applause as it concluded, something which almost never happens in my area.

Yeah, my crowd in Tempe, AZ absolutely ate this up in the final third. It felt like a film festival atmosphere.

[Watashi]

Went into this movie completely blind (just saw the first trailer), and hmmm.... I don't know. Fincher's craft is impeccable, but behind the twists and turns, it's kinda hollow. It's definitely not boring. I also can't ignore the misogyny. Whether it's intentional or being satirized, I have a feeling this will get a Fight Club effect where most people are only going to get "bitch be crazy" out of the film. It feels like a horror movie specifically targeted towards men. Will need to read up on it before I reach a final verdict.

I really liked Patrick Fugit in this movie. I don't know why.

[Watashi]

I also felt Neil Patrick Harris's character was really out of place.

[Kurosawa Fan]

I also felt Neil Patrick Harris's character was really out of place.

This was the only way the film failed in adapting the novel. His character needed more attention paid than he received and needed to be shown as a greater threat. As for the misogyny, I don't see it. She is a sociopath for sure, but Go and Boney are very strong and positive female characters. I don't see any validity in calling the film misogynistic.

And Fugit was dull, but then again so was his character. Not really his fault.

[Watashi]

After sleeping on it, I think I'm going to give it a nay. I don't think it's as clever as it thinks it is. I find the "wink-wink" misdirection meta-ness groan-worthy (the "MasterMind" board game, Nick and Go playing the Game of Life, "This is just like a Law and Order episode", Nick's love of reality television). The satirization of the media doesn't cut deep enough and is just painfully obvious.

Though my biggest problem is that it's trying to be a gender morality play on marriage and the people we pretend to be and tries to find a balance that both these people are terrible people yet perfect for each other, but however the film specifically chooses a side at the end. [

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The scene where Amy gets crossed and manipulated by the trailer trash couple brings a level reality to this manipulation game. It's another instance of misdirection that maybe Amy, this rich white girl, isn't as cold and calculating as we thought. However after that scene doesn't develop Amy or the plot any further. There's no moment of reflection. She still comes up with the master plan to kill NPH and ends up recovering by being America's sweetheart again. She still wins.

]

[Ezee E]

I don't think it's misogynistic either. Amy is certainly a villain, but the movie, as K-Fan stated, supports the side of Go and Boney. They're against her as well. The movie also puts NPH into a particularly creepy character that Amy's simply privy to and smarter than.

Ben Affleck's Nick remains a cheater and also slams Amy's head against the wall near the end of the movie. That move really surprised my audience, and surprised myself more than anything else in the movie.

The Mastermind and Game of Life are nothing more than winks, and certainly not something to make or break the movie.

[Ezee E]

One thing i can say against the movie is that Amy is never the "cool girl" that she monologues about. When her and Nick meet, she seems more quiet and smart than anything, but never the "cool girl" that she comes across as in the book.

One section missing from the book that I think would've worked well was the gal from high school that she also tortured. Would've been a neat layer, but other than that, I can't say that there's anything missing from the book that had to be in the movie, and all the changes made from book to screen are justifiable, or simply work better on screen. The murder is one of the best in all movies for quite some time. Sheebus.

[Rowland]

I walked out of this with very mixed but generally positive thoughts. After reading all sorts of thought-provoking reviews and think-pieces, I'm convinced that I'm either overrating or underrating it. Sonuvabitch. I agree with Wats however that for all the layers one can read into this, my impression is that it simply plays for most of the general audience as "That bitch cray."

[Henry Gale]

Whoa, this thread is Spoiler City. Pretty glad I didn't happen to come back in here after Izzy and Ezee's brief posts.

But yeah, pretty much adored this. Never read the book, so going in and taking it as it is in this way for the first time, I found to be just incredibly strong, no-frills, and often virtuously effective storytelling (even credit to Flynn and Fincher in this sense). It might not be my favourite Fincher film (which I'm not sure of anyway), but it's likely the film of his that most sums up what I love about him as a filmmaker.

There are moments here that aren't overtly stylized or heightened with their emotions that still pack a punch unlike anything in the biggest moments of other thrillers. I was going to say "thrillers like this", but realized how empty a category that is, in the very best way.

I'll have some more thoughts later, because I'm still on a pretty big high from this after seeing it last night, but I really think it's pretty amazing what this manages to do, with its marketing being a major component and asset to that too.

Easily four stars and a low to mid-range 9 out of 10. Somehow just escapes my Top 5 of the year at this point, which says more about how strongly this year is coming together than the film itself.

[Bosco B Thug]

I really liked Patrick Fugit in this movie. I don't know why.

He had a number of great "He definitely did it" deliveries.

Fugit and Dickens were my MVPs.

Also, I swear I do not condone murder and craziness, but

[

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Amy is awesome (within the context of the symbolic film, of course). Guess I might be a rad feminist.

]

[Henry Gale]

He had a number of great "He definitely did it" deliveries.

Fugit and Dickens were my MVPs.

Fugit's annoyed response of [

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"Can't you just be happy your wife is alive?"

] to Affleck is so hilariously perfect.

And honestly, there aren't too many people that aren't MVP's in this out of the major players. I mean, this movie contains a pretty great performance from Tyler Perry!

NPH (maybe because he almost seems to be playing a creepier, dialed-back version of a combination of that Harold & Kumar bravado and his Barney Stinson) was the one player I never felt quite clicked like the rest. But Pike is just stunning and deserves every bit of praise and accolade that will hopefully come her way, Affleck delivers more effective here than anything recall him ever putting on screen, Carrie Coon is just beautifully awesome and definitely the breakthrough here (especially for those that haven't known her recently from The Leftovers), and like you said, Dickens and Fugit kill it, playing the duality of the investigation/persecution with so much nuanced humour to just the right extent. Even Scoot McNairy's one scene builds a character with a greatly resonant function to the larger story going forward.

[Bosco B Thug]

And honestly, there aren't too many people that aren't MVP's in this out of the major players. I mean, this movie contains a pretty great performance from Tyler Perry!

Eh. Don't get the fuss about his perf.

[Henry Gale]

Eh. Don't get the fuss about his perf.

I dunno, it's not the role I most left the theatre thinking most about (or even the fourth or fifth most) but considering the expectations of someone like me who's grated by any 15 minutes of his broad comedic work or even seen the fairly banal serious stuff he's done otherwise, I just found it really impressive how effortlessly charming and assured he makes what could be a pretty well-worn caricature of a role into something so magnetic and human among all the other dizzying emotions in his scenes.

The movie has its fair share of silly archetypes that do their job for the story (Missi Pyle, Casey Wilson, and Amy's parents particularly spring to mind) that help paint a familiar artifice of the film's American urban life and celebrity culture, but Fincher guides Perry's work towards something more uniquely vulnerable, understandable, and then intermittently hilarious, and I'm not even going to be cocksure enough to think it took the director's standard fifty takes to get it to that place for each scene with him.

But it also doesn't make me eager to see whatever he does next, just impressed that his vacation into Fincherland was so beneficial for everyone. The dude is a machine, often in befuddling and scary ways, but nice to see he has other functions outside of his empiric mega-brand, particularly when they can play out like this.

[Bosco B Thug]

I dunno, it's not the role I most left the theatre thinking most about (or even the fourth or fifth most) but considering the expectations of someone like me who's grated by any 15 minutes of his broad comedic work or even seen the fairly banal serious stuff he's done otherwise, I just found it really impressive how effortlessly charming and assured he makes what could be a pretty well-worn caricature of a role into something so magnetic and human among all the other dizzying emotions in his scenes.

The movie has its fair share of silly archetypes that do their job for the story (Missi Pyle, Casey Wilson, and Amy's parents particularly spring to mind) that help paint a familiar artifice of the film's American urban life and celebrity culture, but Fincher guides Perry's work towards something more uniquely vulnerable, understandable, and then intermittently hilarious, and I'm not even going to be cocksure enough to think it took the director's standard fifty takes to get it to that place for each scene with him.

But it also doesn't make me eager to see whatever he does next, just impressed that his vacation into Fincherland was so beneficial for everyone. The dude is a machine, often in befuddling and scary ways, but nice to see he has other functions outside of his empiric mega-brand, particularly when they can play out like this.

You're totally on point about how Fincher manages an array of performances (some nice and nuanced, others broad and overtly satirical) to create something telling and delicate, but I'm just honestly am befuddled by lots of people pointing out Perry when I came out of the film feeling like he barely registered as much more than a cameo. But maybe I need to see the film again. You're probably more on the wavelength of the actual truth - he has an integral and featured role, commiserating and endearing himself as part of the "Nick camp," humanizing the hotshot "amoral" lawyer by being on what ultimately ends up the "underdog"/losing side of the story. But, just reflecting my own personal experience, there was never a point where I went "Wow, Tyler Perry's so charming in this role!" or "He's bringing such an expert touch to this role!", but that's a very subjective thing and, of course, others certainly responded to his performance.

And I forget that his character has to act the grounded realist a lot, since things largely don't go their way - he's not just the fast-talking lawyer always patting Affleck on the back and calling him "baby."

[Izzy Black]

Perry's performance is the only savory thing about this turkey.

[Mara]

I saw this last night and thought it was pretty solid. I had some reservations but mostly liked the book, and this adaptation worked better than I would have expected given how much of what happens in the book is internal. I thought the pacing had a couple issues, especially between Amy's dramatic return and the end. Overall, positive.

Now, I may be colored by my perceptions of the book, but I wouldn't say the film is misogynistic so much as it is deeply misanthropic. The world of the novel and the film is populated almost exclusively by manipulative, duplicitous assholes; Amy is just the most skilled of these. There are slight exceptions for Margo and Boney, (and in flashback, the Dunne's mother) who are genuinely good people. Everyone else is horrible. It's not a story that hates women; it's a story that hates people.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Now, I may be colored by my perceptions of the book, but I wouldn't say the film is misogynistic so much as it is deeply misanthropic. The world of the novel and the film is populated almost exclusively by manipulative, duplicitous assholes; Amy is just the most skilled of these. There are slight exceptions for Margo and Boney, (and in flashback, the Dunne's mother) who are genuinely good people. Everyone else is horrible. It's not a story that hates women; it's a story that hates people.

Agree completely. Hard to call it misogynistic when the only two characters worth a damn are both women. Glad you liked it. I was waiting for your response.

[max314]

...I wouldn't say the film is misogynistic so much as it is deeply misanthropic.

"Deeply misanthropic" could be the title of Fincher's biography.

[Pop Trash]

I'll have to think about it some more, but I'm pretty sure I really dug this. I'm an auteurist/style-is-the-substance type and I think Fincher really elevated the ending to have an otherworldly dream like quality to it (another great Reznor soundtrack helped immensely). The film is also edited to the hilt. It's not quite Zodiac but, man, that editing, camera placement, and lighting really do it for me. I don't really get the charges of misogyny here any more than I would get charges of misandry towards Mary Harron's film version of American Psycho.

[Morris Schæffer]

Decent, strongly acted, but straining at credibility. Why exactly should Nick be [

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forced to live out his days with Amy by the end? Yes, because the public would eat him alive, but if the man is unhappy, and now knowing he's living with a throat-slitting, well, cunt, surely he's free to do as he pleases. The movie makes it look like amy's just checkmated Nick. One thing though, the baby, was it his?if it's Desi's baby, then there's nothing in that regard holding Nick back from leaving Amy either.

]

Feels a bit far-fetched as a treatise on what marriage really is although I guess you could see it as crazy psycho-thriller too.

EDIT: Was it always her intention to [

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kill Desi and return or did she see that her situation was hopeless and that the only way to screw Nick was to actually return as the victim of Desi? Even though initially she thought that vanishing into thin air was the ideal way to screw her husband.

]

The plot is really, kinda, sorta, far-fetched.