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Gone Girl


Gone Girl (2014)



Director: David Fincher
Cast overview: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike
Running time: 149 minutes

I'm a fan of David Fincher as a director, but I must be one of the only people who didn't enjoy this as much as the rest of the populace seem to have. Don't get me wrong, it was OK, but that's all I found it to be. Yes, there are plenty of twists and turns but, not only are these generally confusing to the extreme, but they also seem to be liberally thrown in on an ad hoc basis - one turn is followed by another, seemingly in a contradictory fashion.

Rosamund Pike is great here, as stunning as she is crazy. At the same time, she's believable. She's a believable nutter. Affleck, who certainly seems to be better as a director than as an actor, can't really be described as anything more than solid, I don't think, and he seems to be at the very limit of his acting powers here. He's not brilliant, but he suffices. Carrie Coon outshined Affleck for me as the latter's sister, and Neil Patrick Harris worked well here despite the obvious typecasting preconception.

I've not read Gillian Flynn's novel of this, so can't comment on how well the film follows the book, but I imagine it's pretty close. Another criticism I have of the film is its ending - I won't give too much away, but it just seemed a lazy cop-out to me, and the final thirty minutes seemed rushed and confused. Not only that, but there wasn't much tension throughout. I think announcing what happened early on was the film's death knell for me, as I lost a great deal of interest from that point as the film seemed to have been done and dusted within a short time.

So, despite my criticisms, it's not bad - OK, it's solid enough - but it could have been so much more, I feel, had it been better thought through. The ending let it down a lot for me - I might have otherwise given it a seven - but there are several problems I had with this. OK, but not much more.



Quotes
Tanner Bolt: You two are the most ****ed up people I've ever met and I deal with ****ed up people for a living.

Amy Dunne: What's the laptop for?
Nick Dunne: Laptopping!

Margo Dunne: [discussing what kind of wood item Nick is going to give to Amy for their 5th wedding anniversary, the "wood" anniversary] So what are you going to give her?
Nick Dunne: I don't know, there's nothing good for wood.
Margo Dunne: I know what you can do. You go home and **** her brains out. Then you take your penis and smack her in the face with it, and you say, "There's some wood, bitch!"

Trivia
Ben Affleck postponed directing a film in order to work with David Fincher. "He's the only director I've met who can do everybody else's job better than they could," states Affleck. On set one day, Affleck changed the lens setting on a camera an almost indiscernible amount, betting a crew member that Fincher wouldn't notice. "But ********* if he didn't say, 'Why does the camera look a little dim?'"

In order to figure out his character, Ben Affleck researched and studied several men who were accused and convicted of killing their wives. He paid particular attention to Scott Peterson.

Ben Affleck would constantly sing '80s songs in between takes. Impressed, Tyler Perry decided to start a game that ended up lasting the entire duration of filming. Perry would start to sing the most random song he could think of to see if Affleck would start singing along. According to Perry, Affleck knew all of the words to every single song Perry threw at him, including ones by Barbra Streisand.

Trailer