Nick
Dunne looks the part of a Scott Peterson surrogate, but he is probably not
guilty of murdering his wife, Amy. Probably. Nonetheless, nobody would call him
innocent. Frankly, that is true of everyone involved in this sordid affair, but
that does not stop the wolf-pack media from anointing victims and villains in
David Fincher’s Gone Girl (trailer here), the opening
night film of the 52nd New York Film Festival.
It
does not take very long to find the cracks and strains in the Dunnes’ marriage.
A great deal of it involves money. Since both were laid off, they have had to
rely on her much depleted trust fund. There are other issues as well, which
will be revealed over time, but with varying degrees of credibility.
Regardless, it is perfectly logical for the police to initially suspect Dunne
when his wife disappears under mysterious circumstances. When they discover
large pools of her blood have been freshly scrubbed from the Dunnes’ kitchen
floor, the noose tightens. However, a number of game-changing shoes will drop
in the second and third acts.
Adapting
her own novel, first-time screenwriter Gillian Flynn is unusually adept at
maintaining the unreliable narration and related narrative devices that are
often sacrificed in page to screen transfers. Still, some things are crystal
clear, such as her withering contempt for the baying media hounds. Missi Pyle
plays a character named Ellen Abbott, but she might as well wear a name tag
that says: “hello, my name is Nancy Grace.” It is not a flattering portrayal.
However,
the depiction of marriage is just as jaundiced. While it might sound like some
sort of “the stranger I married” Lifetime movie (a genre unto themselves that drew
a snarky comment or two at the NYFF presser), the film really hinges on just
how well the Dunnes know each other.
Rosamund
Pike was very good in Barney’s Version and
unjustly overlooked in Jack Reacher,
but she takes her craft to a new level as Amy Dunne. For reasons that would be
spoilery to explain, it is a physically and emotionally rigorous performance
that brings to mind Bette Davis at her most noir (and that it not suggested
lightly). Tyler Perry (yes, that Tyler Perry) is nearly as a great a surprise,
killing it as Dunne’s lawyer, Tanner Bolt (cool name). He deliberately refrains
from channeling well known celebrity attorneys, but he projects the
intelligence and charisma you would dearly want in a defense attorney.
Poor
Ben Affleck took some Batman ribbing in stride at the press conference, but he
is solidly good to very good as the highly flawed Nick Dunne. Neil Patrick
Harris also has his moments as Desi Collings, Amy’s well heeled, but decidedly
squirrely ex-boyfriend and possibly stalker. Nevertheless, it is hard for those
who share the screen with Pike’s Dunne to get out of her dominating shadow.
Gone Girl is definitely a
rebound film for Fincher after the completely unnecessary and largely
uninspired Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remake,
but it still does not have the distinctive auteurist stamp of films like Fight Club and Se7en. Arguably, this is more of a writer and actor’s vehicle. Even
though she does not exactly mirror the structure of her source novel, Flynn’s
screenplay is still cleverly constructed, even though she allows the endgame to
drag out a bit, rubbing our noses in the story’s implications.
