Spoiler-free Gone Girl Review

As I watched the previews for “Gone Girl,” I couldn’t help thinking that 2014 has blessed us with a stacked Awards’ Season.  With “Interstellar,” “Fury,” “American Sniper,” and “Exodus: Gods and Kings” coming soon (yes, I’m sucker and am cautiously optimistic for Exodus) as well as some fun big-budget stuff like “Mockingjay” and “The Battle of the Five Armies” out there too, I was thinking that Gone Girl might be good, but I doubted I would walk away thinking it was going to be a guaranteed multi-Oscar winner… And lo and behold, that’s exactly how I felt.

If you’ve seen “The Social Network,” you should know what you’re getting into stylistically with Gone Girl.  The movie looks like a David Fincher movie, and that’s a good thing.  It wasn’t over-directed in any sense, but we get several great shots, particularly during a pivotal scene near the end of the movie that I won’t get into.  Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are on music like in Social Network, and they did a fantastic job of using the score to lead the audience to the exact emotions Fincher is trying to portray.  Reznor and Ross are probably the early frontrunners for Best Original Score in what is the first of many nominations this movie will garner come Oscar time.

Gone Girl will likely also walk away with Best Adapted Screenplay without any real competition.  The movie is 145 minutes long, but it’s a VERY quick 145 minutes.  Gilllian Flynn wrote the movie as well as the novel it’s based on, and she did a fantastic job bringing the story through a very dense plot with quite a few events to stuff in.  Best of all, unlike a previous Fincher film we’re all familiar with, “The Game,” this is a movie that stands on its own even after knowing the twists.  I credit that to the story Flynn wrote and, more importantly, the characters in that story.

Kissel said on the Facebook group that he was worried about this movie being spoiled if he doesn’t see it soon.  He’s probably right; I give it about two more weeks before SNL does something involving Amy Dunne, amazingly portrayed by Rosamund Pike.  Pike is getting a Best Actress nomination for her work here.  Pike plays Dunne through several stages of her disastrous five-year marriage with Nick, and she nails all of them with flying colors.  Based on everything else coming out this year, I don’t know how she gets beaten for the award. 

Pike’s performance overshadows the rest of the cast, but I also wanted to call out Carrie Coon and Nick’s sister Margo.  Coon has had a breakout 2014, playing the sympathetic and nutty Nora on “The Leftovers” as well.  This will probably be where most people discover Coon, and she’s very good as Margo.  Ben Affleck as Nick does a good job as the bumbling straight man for a large portion of the movie.  He will probably not get any accolades, but he was good.

I have no real qualms with this movie other than the historical inaccuracies that no one was talking about quinoa in 2007 and Nick is seen playing Battlefield 4 in a 2010 flashback (game came out in 2013).  Ugh, fact check fools.  Ok, I do have one thing I didn’t like, but it’s a semi-spoiler that I will not get into now.

As you can tell, I loved Gone Girl.  If it came out in 2013, it would have definitely given “12 Years a Slave” a run for its money (haven’t seen 12 Years yet, so I can’t definitively comment, but considering “American Hustle” was so talked about, I think my statement is fair).  It’s David Fincher at his best, masterfully creating a dark and creepy thriller that will stick with you.

+ Rosamund Pike

+ Carrie Coon

+ Great Script that makes 145 minutes fly by

+ Fincher doing really good Fincher stuff

+ Reznor and Ross with another awesome score

- [REDACTED – SPOILER]

Grade: A+

Please do not post spoilers in the comments!  Once enough of us have seen it, we can start a separate spoiler thread.