- Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) would normally be the least sympathetic character in a movie. When we first meet him, he's knocking back a few early morning drinks, avoiding his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) on their fifth wedding anniversary. In flashback, we discover that he dragged Amy from New York City to small-town Missouri ("the navel of this great country") right around the time he sunk the remainder of her trust fund into a bar run by his sister, Margo (Carrie Coon). Although Nick had a lot to say when he first met Amy, he's become much more distant lately, sitting around the house playing violent video games and ditching Amy to go out with his high school buddies. Nick allegedly works as a writing teacher, but we never see him anywhere near a book or a classroom. I suppose we do technically see Nick near a student (Emily Ratajkowski), but only because he is sleeping with her.
- And then one day, Amy goes missing. Nick returns home to find an open front door and a broken coffee table. Detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens) notices a few peculiarities around the house, and a forensics team discovers abundant traces of Amy's blood. Did Amy have any interests or hobbies? Nick doesn't really know. Did Amy have any friends? None that Nick is aware of, which is why it is so surprising when a pregnant neighbor (Casey Wilson) shows up claiming to be her best friend. Did Nick know that Amy was pregnant, too? Ummm...what? The discoveries of Amy's new life insurance policy, their burdensome credit card debt, and a shed full of gadgets only a man would buy don't exactly help Nick's case. When the news about his mistress and Amy's pregnancy leaks, it doesn't take long for the press to label Nick "the most hated man in America." He resorts to hiring Tanner Bolt (Tyler Perry) the go-to lawyer for wrongfully accused men who, with a wink and a nod, definitely didn't murder their wives.
- By the way, Amy is still alive! She faked her own violent kidnapping just to get revenge on Nick for, in her words, taking away her pride, dignity, hope, and money. One also gets the impression that she was personally offended when Nick put the same moves on his young girlfriend that he had once used on her. Also, Amy is completely and criminally insane. The film does a wonderful job depicting how she faked her kidnapping and pregnancy, from siphoned blood to stolen urine, and let's not even mention how she treated her ex-boyfriends (Neil Patrick Harris, Scoot McNairy). One wonders how things would have worked out if Amy herself had not been robbed of all her money by a couple of Ozark mountain interlopers (Lola Kirke, Boyd Holbrook). Regardless, Amy waltzes into Nick's life and the media spotlight in a blood-soaked T-shirt and quickly exonerates her husband of all wrongdoing. Neither Nick nor Detective Boney believes her story for a second, but who can argue with a compelling media extravaganza?
- In a sense, Gone Girl is a return to form for David Fincher, who made his name as a director with "fooled you!" movies like Se7en, The Game, and Fight Club. Although the film touches upon themes of misogyny and media saturation, I see it primarily a vehicle for lurid-but-intelligent entertainment, a description that may as well be the name of Fincher's production company. A few truly inventive details, taken from the novel by Gillian Flynn (who also wrote the screenplay), will stick in my mind for some time. One is that Amy is none other than "The Amazing Amy" whose childhood was relentlessly improved upon in a set of children's novels written by her calculating parents. Another wonderful detail is how naturally Amy transitions from planning her elaborate and sickeningly cute anniversary treasure hunts to mapping out her elaborate and sick revenge scheme. The performances by Pike, Affleck, Perry, and Dickens are all excellent, and the soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross mixes their usual imposing atmospheric tones with an occasional homage to Angelo Badalamenti. The film, like Amy herself, goes off the rails in ways nobody would anticipate.
