Movie Review: Gone Girl

The fifty-years old american director and producer David Fincher does not have to prove his talent any more. Master in the art of shooting dark and violent films, he is presenting us this year his new thriller : Gone Girl. After his successes Seven, Fight club and Zodiac, Fincher decided to adapt the best-selling novel published under the name Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (Les apparences in French).

Not only is Gone Girl an impeccably-led thriller, rhythmic and of the type that pushes you beyond appearances and into challenging your certainties, but it’s a fascinating study of the mechanisms at work in a couple: love-hate relationships, fear, emotional blackmail and manipulation. Adds up to that a socio-political dimension which depicts the intrusive power of the media and public opinion. It’s perverse and obsessional, and we love it.

The summary

When Amy disappears on her 5th year wedding anniversary, the clumsiness of her husband Nick Dunne makes him the perfect culprit.

But when the glitter and romance of their early days of marriage are gradually swept away by a harsher reality, things seem to go out of frame. As the media projects the image of an idle, unfaithful and violent husband, everybody wonders: did Nick Dunne killed his wife?

Gone girl is a great thriller, that succeeds to surprise and to maintain the spectator in a state of uncertainty and in psychological tension. While the first part is a kind of enigma, the second part is a race to the truth.

But the director also manages to provide an analysis of the relations between men and women within a couple. How could the unemployment and the lack of money destroy a couple ? How the circumstances can bring people in love to hate deeply each other ? Fincher invites us to a deepened reflection on conjugal relations.

What about the press and the public ?

The average of the public : 4,3 /5

The grade of the press critic : 4,1 /5

Télérama : “David Fincher excelle dans l'un de ses hobbies préférés : s'approprier des récits clés en main (...), avec un diabolique talent de conteur, une science exacte de la manipulation des images.”

Chicago Tribune : “David Fincher's film version of the Gillian Flynn bestseller Gone Girl is a stealthy, snake-like achievement. It's everything the book was and more — more, certainly, in its sinister, brackish atmosphere dominated by mustard-yellow fluorescence, designed to make you squint, recoil and then lean in a little closer.”

The reasons why you have to see the film

1) A quest for truth beyond the obvious: resonating with the fact that in the USA, no presumption of innocence exists.

2) The rhythm: at beginning slow to build on tension, then an acceleration of events and revelations given parsimoniously at the right moments, slowly and surely awakening our consciousness.

3) A socio-political reflection on the power of the media & public opinion: mediatic machine which riddles Nick with accusations. articulates the conflict between emotion and reason, immediacy and hindsight. Popular lynching : image-based society in which everything is “mise en scène”.

4) A presentation on the complex mechanisms at work within a couple: love-hate relationships, emotional blackmail, fear, manipulation… Fincher’s sour vision of conjugal relations. Marriage seems to be behind closed doors, an insidious private battle. Neither side is black or white : the distinction between good and evil is constantly blurred, everything mingles.

Gone girl is a major highlight of this year’s movie releases.

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