Gone Girl

Gone Girl, 2014. A woman in an unhappy marriage disappears suspiciously.

Directed by David Fincher. Written by Gillian Flynn, based on her book. Starring Ben Affleck, & Rosamund Pike, with Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Carrie Coon, & Kim Dickens.

Concept: C
Story: A
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: A
Music: D
Enjoyment: It's about as bitter an cynical as a movie could get. A director with any sense of fun, or with a taste for suspense, could have made a great movie out of the material. But Fincher, as usual, prefers to wallow in his misery. The only strong response I had to anything in it was a sense of uneasiness from brutality (both physical and psychological). It's a lot like Seven that way. It has the general shape of a thriller, but it doesn't function so much as a suspense story as a series of awful things for us to gawk at. I still wouldn't say it's a bad movie, though, as it excels in a number of areas - especially the acting - enough to keep it watchable. C

GPA: 2.5/4