I caught Gone Girl this weekend and I have mixed feelings about it. I thought the story was compelling but I hated the direction and cinematography. So I’m not sure if I can say I loved it.
The premise is that Nick Dunne comes home to find his wife, Amy, has disappeared on the day of their 5th anniversary. There are signs of a struggle in the living room and he can’t find his wife anywhere. He contacts the police, who are somewhat cold and stand-offish.
Nonetheless, Nick cooperates with the police in their investigation of his wife’s disappearance. He surrenders his house to allow the police to search and shortly the whole thing becomes a media parade. Is she dead? Has she been kidnapped? Did Nick have anything to do with it? The missing woman becomes a sort of folk hero and a larger than life symbol for oppressed women.
Naturally, things continually go south for Nick. It looks bad. It looks really, really bad for him and public opinion gets worse and worse.
I don’t want to provide any spoilers but I will say there are some very nice and well executed twists. The writing is excellent, dialogue and characterizations spot on. Very well done in that regard. And the story is better than most recent thriller/mysteries I’ve seen lately.
What I didn’t like was the grainy, faded cinematography that had the look of a student film in my opinion. I imagine that choice was made to give the story a texture of grit and a feeling of hopelessness, but for me it just made it hard to follow and in some case see what was going on. Also the transitioning from one scene to the next was done oddly. If you watch the film, you’ll see what I mean. I found that very distracting. And the story jockeyed back and forth from present day to the past, which if you looked away from the screen for a minute could be really confusing. And flashbacks, especially when there are a lot of them are hard to do well in a film because it makes you feel like you’re standing still.
Overall, I’d say the film was worth the price of admission and would give a three out of five on the viewing scale.
So, if you’re looking for a decent mystery that may surprise you in the end, you’ll probably enjoy this one.
Anita Rodgers Mystery Writer 
You put your finger on some of the things that were bothering my about the film that I couldn’t quite articulate. Some of the editing is choppy, especially (if I am recalling correctly) some of the flashback scenes which were not necessarily all in order. And the graininess seems more appropriate for a well done horror film (anything involving Ti West IMO) than a slick thriller like this.
But I’m with you, I loved the twists and turns along the way. I hated the ending almost enough to love the movie, despite its shortcomings. If that makes any sense at all? I guess I figure (almost) any work of fiction that can illicit that much of an emotional response from me deserves my respect.
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Hey Wayne!
Yeah, exactly. I totally about the graininess factor – seemed the wrong production value this type of film. Especially since the one of the main characters was this hip, sophisticated writer type. Seemed incongruous to me.
I totally get what you mean by hating the ending enough to love it – couldn’t have said it better myself.
It definitely did illicit an emotional albeit visceral response, so yeah, kudos to them for that. And Ben Affleck wasn’t quite as unanimated as usual, right?
Annie
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