![Ratings 7 and half](https://madsmovies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ratings-7-and-half1.png?w=730&h=162)
When I watch movies I hate to be influenced by what the media or other people have already said about the film I’m watching. That being said, sometimes that’s hard to avoid like in cases of “The Interview” when the media coverage was so prevalent. In the case of the films that have been nominated for an Academy Award its also incredibly difficult to avoid spoilers and critics. Luckily for me, when I set out to watch “Gone Girl” the only thing I knew about it was the lead actress, Rosamund Pike, had been nominated for the 2015 Best Actress Academy Award and that it was based on a book. Honestly I hardly even remembered the previews. I’m laying this all out for you because, if you haven’t seen “Gone Girl” yet, you shouldn’t read this review. In order for you to get the optimal viewing experience, I don’t want a single thing ruined for you and in order to give the optimal reviewing experience, I’m going to have to discuss the second half of the movie, which basically means:
*BEYOND THIS POINT YOU ARE NO LONGER SAFE FROM SPOILERS*
With only eight nominations for best picture this year out of the possible ten spaces that the Academy could have filled, its interesting to note that “Gone Girl” is not one of the nominees. Perhaps I’ll have a better opinion once I’ve finished watching the five and a half nominated films I haven’t seen, but already I think I can see that “Gone Girl” doesn’t quite hold its ground with the others. Now, I am rating the film at 7.5 out of 10, which is certainly nothing to baulk at. In fact, I really enjoyed this film.
Audiences always seem conflicted over Ben Affleck when he is in front of the camera instead of behind it, but in the role of Nick Dunne, the protagonist of “Gone Girl,” I think you’ll find a well developed character and passionate performance. What aspects of that character are to be given credit to Affleck and which to the writer of the Gone Girl novel, Gillian Flynn, may be difficult to figure out, but what is clear is that he fills a complicated role very well. Unfortunately for him, his performance is entirely overshadowed by Rosamund Pike, who plays Amy Dunne.
The film starts on “one day gone,” the day that Nick Dunne came home to find his wife Amy missing from their home. Up until almost the exact middle point of the film the events that unfold lead the detectives on the case, as well as the general public following the disappearance, and the audience, to believe that Nick Dunne murdered his wife. As mad as I am that I didn’t figure it out sooner, it is a very well thought-out twist that occurs half-way through the movie that Amy Dunne has deliberately and methodically framed her husband for murder. What aids this blind-side turn of events is the way the director portrayed the timeline of events through the film. While most of the film takes place in a current time-line of Nick trying to prove his innocence, the film often skips backwards a few years to the beginning of Nick and Amy’s relationship, usually narrated by Amy as she writes in her journal. Never would you suspect that what she was writing in her private journal was mostly lies, told in very calculated ways, to be found and read by the police.
As the first half of the film progresses you can feel your decision about Nick’s innocence change as well based on how the director leads us through the timeline of events. Of course there are hints as to what is really going on, but never out of place enough to make you even think that a twist is coming. I had pretty much decided he was guilty during the scene in which we are introduced to Andie, the young woman whom which Nick had been having an intimate affair. How quickly that darkly lit mise-en-scene reinforced and committed my guilty judgement, as well as Nick’s sister. And yet, it was just a cleverly placed and arranged scene to do exactly that. When the whole plot is revealed its shown how Nick’s faults pale in comparison to the sins of his wife.
The character of Amy Dunne is phenomenal and phenomenally portrayed by Rosamund Pike. Beginning, in the audiences’ perception, as an intellectual and gentle woman, and turning into the murderous psychopath that she really is, was an incredible feat to accomplish without giving anything away before its time. I was in rapture watching the second half of this film as the mystery was unraveled and the woman behind it as well. Whether she was chemically imbalanced from birth or being raised in an environment where your fictional self was constantly showing you up was what made her snap, its clear that Amy has a lot of problems. Nick, when asked by the police what it is his wife does all day, has no answer; as the oblivious and unfaithful husband that Nick had been set up to look like, the thought didn’t cross my mind that she was at home doing something devious.
Okay now here’s the part of the film that really gets me: the end. Honestly the end of this film is what brings it from that Mad Rad acclaimed spot on my rating scale all the way down to a 7.5. Think about the commitment that Amy must have had for, what, months? a year? planning this whole convoluted plot. The film shows that she read at least an entire stack of crime novels, did research, wrote entries into her diary that not only took place over years of time but also maintained consistency with certain truths of their relationship to keep it believable, and set up an entire intricate scavenger hunt to further the guilt of her husband. All of this on top of appearing normal every day for Nick and planning her suicide so that Nick’s blame would be so clear he received the death penalty.
Think about that level of commitment, she had to be really dedicated to ending Nick’s life and her own to go through all that planning without ever wavering. There had to be moments where Nick was really trying with her where she would have doubted her plans and yet she still did it all. Then, she’s almost completely gotten away with it before two of her white trash new neighbors prompt her to divulge she is no longer planning on killing herself. When that decision was made was very unclear. After those neighbors rob her, the Amy in hiding, she ends up “running into” her ex-lover played by Neil Patrick Harris, Desi Collings. In almost a matter of random Hollywood convenience, Desi has the perfect safe-house for Amy to stay at, complete with cameras. And then because she sees a fabricated version of Nick on TV calling her home, she decides to abandon all those months of planning for a plan she cooked up in a single day but still requiring the same level of intricate details. Honestly I’m mad that the film ended when it did because I’m sure that given a couple more weeks that lady detective would be all over the discrepancies in Amy’s story. I mean the woman noticed when picture frames were standing upright when they shouldn’t have been and now Amy’s claiming it was a legitimate kidnapping, why would someone stage the kidnapping? Why was all of Amy’s blood all over the kitchen floor if she wasn’t murdered there but just taken? Where are those wounds?
I think that where it was an interesting choice for Nick and Amy to actually end back up together, its totally unbelievable. Yes, we’ve been shown plenty of evidence towards Amy’s unstable mind but wasn’t what she wanted was for them to be honest with each other so she wouldn’t have to pretend to be that “cool girl” that she thought he wanted? How is that ending anything but the start of another cycle of resentment and murder? This ending was trying way too hard, when the film itself had already proven how twisty and unpredictable of a story it was. Nick would have to be a much more deeply confused or insane person than was ever portrayed in the film in order to let Amy back into his life in any other capacity but fear. The dynamic of Amy going to live back with Nick and him fearing for his life was at least believable but to end the film with the idea that Nick is staying with Amy for the sake of his unborn child is basically ridiculous. Amy would have been found out in a second if any of the precedents that had set up earlier in the film held true for the investigation once she returned, which just makes the random pregnancy and Nick’s decision, almost a desire it seemed, to stay with Amy all that more maddening to me.
For an incredibly well thought-out thriller with an amazing twist I didn’t see coming they really called it in at the end there. I still think its worth the first watch but this won’t likely be a film that will pull me into another two hour sitting now that I know the whole spiel.
IMBD
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