{"id":1494,"date":"2014-10-05T17:11:58","date_gmt":"2014-10-05T17:11:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bryanbuser.com\/365moviesbyday\/?p=1494"},"modified":"2022-09-15T00:55:30","modified_gmt":"2022-09-15T00:55:30","slug":"gone-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/365moviesbyday.bryanbuser.com\/gone-girl\/","title":{"rendered":"Gone Girl (2014)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"goneHalfway through\u00a0Gone Girl<\/em>, I thought I was watching this year’s movie to beat. It had everything I wanted in a terse murder mystery\/thriller. First, it had the small town file (which I love). We know\u00a0who the main\u00a0potential suspect may be from the film’s opening minutes. But this likely suspect may also be the film’s protagonist. And we are left guessing about his guilt or innocence throughout most of the film. We like him. We don’t like him. We hate him. We love him. We go through the gamut of emotions, leaving us exhausted as we sit on the edge of our seats. But the movie unravels in the last 45 minutes with more absurdities than a Jim Carrey movie. Suddenly this well-thought-out thriller becomes a bit of a mockery of itself in an attempt to separate it from other whodunit movies.
\n<\/p>\n

I usually don’t talk about the sound this early in a review, but the score\u00a0was incredible. This is easily the best score I’ve heard since\u00a0The Dark Knight Rises<\/em><\/a>. From the first scene to the last, the music steers the music from one location to the next. The heavy drum beats pulsate through the entire\u00a0theater when a new clue is about to be discovered or when we are in the middle of a taut scene. In addition, the movie is often broken up by Amy’s (Rosemund Pike –\u00a0An Education, Fracture<\/em>) voice. This is a significant component of the picture. Whether we hear her voice as she is reading a fifth wedding anniversary “clue” for husband Nick (Ben Affleck –\u00a0The Town,\u00a0Argo<\/a><\/em>) to find his presence in an attempt to rekindle some romance\/intrigue in their relationship or if she is reading from her diary, Amy’s off-screen voice-overs are almost as much of a character as the screen presence of her\u00a0is. At first, I found her voice pretty annoying, but they quickly became part of the story.<\/p>\n

The movie revolves around the disappearance of Amy. It is the present day, and it’s the fifth anniversary of Amy and Ben. Ben spends the late part of his morning at a bar that he owns with his sister Margo (Carrie Coon – HBO’s\u00a0The Leftovers<\/em>). Rather than celebrating with his wife, Ben tells Margo he plans on telling Amy on that day that he wants a divorce. Upon returning home, he finds a shattered glass coffee table in his living room. His wife is nowhere to be found. And here we have our story.<\/p>\n

There are numerous flashbacks in this movie, and they are fantastic. We can see Nick and Amy’s back story, from the first time they meet, their quick courtship, and their slowly deteriorating marriage. The couple certainly has had their ups and downs. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other in the early parts of their relationship, going as far as to have sex in a public library. They were rich at one point due primarily to a trust set up in Amy’s name (they\u00a0did lose almost all of that money before she got to spend any of it). Then, they lost their jobs due to the recession and moved from New York City to a small town two hours outside St. Louis because of Nick’s ailing mom. During their marriage, Amy felt less and less useful and believed Nick no longer loved her. The movie sets up nicely through the back and forth between the flashbacks and real-time events.<\/p>\n

You will be disappointed if you want this movie to be a full-fledged drama. I believe this is why I was left disappointed. It starts as something way darker and more mysterious than it ends up as. The dark, gritty true crime vibe we are introduced to slowly gives way to something too absurd to believe. I know that was the intention of both writer Gillian Flynn and director David Fincher (The Social Network, Fight Club<\/em>), but that’s not where I wanted the movie\u00a0to go after devoting my first hour and 45 minutes to something that I felt was intricately planned and believable. I will do nothing more than quickly mention Desi Collins (played by Neil Patrick Harris – television’s\u00a0How I Met Your Mother<\/em>). Once he entered the picture, the movie went downhill for me. The plausibility that this story could, through meticulous planning, be carried out was thrown out the window. I understand the need to want to make a whodunit potential kidnapping\/potential murder unique from all of the other movies that are out there. Still, Gone\u00a0Girl<\/em>\u00a0takes it in a completely different direction and leaves me not just scratching my head but wanting to yell out, “Really?!?!”<\/p>\n

Unlike a television series that you can judge season by season or even a franchise that you can evaluate film by film, a standalone needs to be assessed as a whole. For this reason,\u00a0Gone Girl<\/em>\u00a0can only be scored as a slightly above-average movie. It left me with an unsatisfied taste in my mouth. I felt cheated by the farfetched, almost careless ending. The ending left too many holes and got too many people off the hook. It’s almost as if some of these well-thought-out characters were made purposefully stupid.<\/p>\n

I recommend seeing the movie with the understanding that you will most likely be frustrated by it. Nevertheless, it’s worth seeing, if only for the first two-thirds. It’s also worth seeing because the performances were top-notch and likely will be recognized come awards season. Affleck was excellent, and Pike was even better, although it took a little while for her strong performance to kick in.<\/p>\n

Plot 8.4\/10
\nCharacter Development 8.5\/10
\nCharacter Chemistry 8.5\/10
\nActing 8.5\/10
\nScreenplay 8\/10
\nDirecting \u00a08\/10
\nCinematography 9\/10
\nSound 10\/10 (no movie made\u00a0its music better in 2014)
\nHook and Reel 9.5\/10
\nUniversal Relevance 8\/10
\n86.5%<\/p>\n

Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie<\/strong><\/p>\n