Film Review - Gone Girl - Ben Affleck

L to R Rosamund Pike, Ben Affleck - Gone Girl

Directed by David Fincher, Gone Girl is in the mystery thriller film genre with the screenplay by Gillian Flynn (based on her book with the same title). Set in the State of Missouri in the Midwestern United States, the story follows the investigation of the disappearance of Amy Elliott Dunne (Rosamund Pike), who has vanished while her husband, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) exhibits awkward behaviour with almost a total lack of knowledge about his wife's day-to-day life. As the plot line progresses, their marriage is revealed as having all but disintegrated with Nick becoming unfaithful and distant while Amy becomes increasingly alarmed and fearful of loss. With the discovery of Nick's affair with a young student, Amy becomes vengeful and plots his downfall through faking her own death with Nick taking the blame. But who is the greater sociopath, Nick or Amy ?  Much of the film examines the couple's dishonesty with each other as well as with the people in their lives with other topical issues such as the role of talk show media in public interest stories added to the plot. 

With a duration of 149 minutes screening time, this film is too long containing elements of unnecessary repetition which concise editing could have removed without losing the continuity and the intent of the narrative. The juxtaposition of different time periods within the chronological sequence while detailing steps in the plot also make the film appear disjointed. The characters of Nick Dunne and Amy Elliott-Dunne are neither likeable nor sympathetic and an audience would find little empathy for either. Rosamund Pike delivers her role expertly as Amy and to a degree eclipses Ben Affleck's performance as Nick. As a who-dunnit thriller it also loses the element of surprise as soon as the tactics and plot are uncovered. This is a film for the DVD rental rather than the cinema ticket.