That said, I report happily that "Gone Girl", for
all the intimidating hype, is a terrific piece of work, deftly, skillfully,
subtly directed by the increasingly estimable David Fincher ("Fight
Club", "Zodiac", "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo").
Without going into plot detail and risk spoiling the film for others, lets say
here that this is an intricate thriller, a murder mystery or sorts, a black
comedy, a tale that evolves from a sort of "Peyton Place" situation
of inane passion and betrayals but begins to morph into a taut, edgy thriller
and into a dark, bleak comedy. As I said, this is a tale with lots of detail
and surprises, but Fincher has a master's control of the material--use of
flashbacks and shifting from points of view add texture and bring you in
further into this seductive drama-comedy. We do not lose our place anywhere in
the telling.Fincher, like Alfred Hitchcock before him, has a sense of
how to introduce complexity in a film at precisely the moment when you think
you've accurately assessed where the plot is going. Especially pleasing is the
lack of any rickety deus ex machina, the blatantly mechanical plot device in
the form of a stock character or clichéd situation that appears only to
initiate a generic and predictable twist in a genre thriller. "Gone Girl"’s
changes, cogently devised and deftly deployed, arise organically from the
terrain of lying, cheating and infidelity that's already been laid out.
The casting , as well, highlights a superb ensemble of
players. Ben Affleck fitting vindication
for all the fan nastiness that's come his way over the last few years. He is an
actor who has a director’s honest estimation of his own talent as an actor;
although not the most charismatic or fluidly demonstrative leading man we have
in our time, Affleck, as with Clint Eastwood, knows his expressive limits and
performs marvelously when he stays within them. We also get a supremely nuanced
performance from Rosamund Pike; she has the wherewithal to project the image of
an icy prom queen/honors student and the have her character credible into an intellectually
inclined problem child who's personality complications arise like boiling water
once you get close and have an extended look under the veneer. A big plus here
is the presence of Carrie Coon, from HBOs "The Leftovers", who I think as
a fantastic, brilliant actress who will be a talent we'll see much amazing work
from. Playing Affleck's twin sister in this movie, she is wonderful with
characterization of the odd mixture of sibling love and red hot aggravation. Coon
does not go for big gestures but rather captures the right expression, raises
or lowers her voice to the right dynamic level, reveals body language that is a
marvel to watch for its nuance and sense of containment. Coon is essentially evocative in her movements, having, it seems, a cat like control over emotion and reflex; she can see the build of emotion , whether anxiety, lust or rage, and she has the instinct and skill to make the explosions of personality seem perfectly normal. Jarring, yes, but not arbitrary, not compulsive.
