6/10
Gone Girl is a movie that starts out realistic, eventually slips into some kind of surrealism, and lands finally in silliness. One of my biggest pet peeves are movies that go great lengths to be very realistic (i.e. the first third-ish of Gone Girl) and then write in characters who behave in no way close to a manner in which any rational humans would behave (see. everything after the first third-ish). But maybe that's the point - maybe the two principal characters are just two psychopaths and here they stand, warts and all. But so what? Who cares? Spoiler talk below:
The movie has a Big Twist, like most of Fincher's movies, and I didn't see it coming, but I was open to it. My problem was that nothing that happened after the Big Twist made any kind of sense in any kind of reality I live in. I mean yeah I guess it's possible there's people out there as crazy as Amy turned out to be, that's fine. But are there really people out there as crazy as Nick? And when the first third of the movie is told mostly through the eyes of an unreliable narrator (Amy), how much is any of it really worth? We never found out the true extent of Nick's mistreatment of her and we never see Nick's perspective of it, so whether she made everything up is left in the air. And if you strip away the window dressing of the misdirection and the twists in the story (which were well done, I'm not denying that), is this anything more than just one somewhat-believable crazy lady and her completely-unbelievable crazy husband?
In my opinion, a plot twist should serve the story. Here, the twist is the story. And that's the biggest flaw with the movie (and I guess the book but I've never read it). It feels like Gillian Flynn came up with a clever twist, and then worked to build a story around it. But it doesn't hold together for me. Particularly the end of the movie, when Nick decides he'll stay with Amy despite the fact that she's a murderous psycho and Nick's sister goes "well OK" and the investigator goes "well OK" and the lawyer goes "well OK"...what planet am I on?!
The movie just ran out of steam after the twist and got dumber and dumber and less and less believable.
All that said, however, Fincher can still direct a hell of a film, and has the kind of moody realism he's become known for down to a tee. Nothing, in my opinion, was predictable, so if you like knotty plots twists and turns, Gone Girl should keep just about anyone guessing. The acting is great across the board with Rosamund Pike doing a particularly exceptional job. I just couldn't get on board with where the story went so the movie is mostly a good-looking failure for me.
