Gone Girl

Two movies for the price of one.

That's a fairly glib start to a review of a movie that I really liked, but it is true. The first half of Gone Girl is a fairly standard "did he or didn't he" mystery thriller. Then, about an hour in, the perspective shifts entirely and suddenly you realise that you're watching – perhaps – the most pitch-black comedy that you've ever seen.

Despite the abrupt shift, I still think that Gone Girl holds together extremely well as one whole movie. Ben Affleck's Nick manages to inspire sympathy without ever being truly likable while Rosamund Pike's Amy (the star of the show in my opinion) is brilliant, terrifying, hilarious and despicable in various combinations and occasionally all at the same time.

David Fincher's direction is both classy and clever (as usual) and several scenes are particularly outstanding due at least as much to his brilliance as that of the actors involved in them. My one complaint would be over the length – it really didn't need to be two and a quarter hours long. There were certainly a few moments, particularly in the first half, when I wished that the movie would hurry up and get to the point just a little more quickly.

Gone Girl is a movie unlike any that I've ever seen before and as such largely defies further description. I would recommend this movie to all (with a warning that the adult rating is well earned) but especially those with a dark sense of humour. The darker the better.

This is a 2.5 hour movie and sometimes these days it's difficult for me to stick with the longer movies but this never felt long. You were always curious what was going on. Let's just say it didn't quite go the way I expected but I was intrigued the whole time. The acting was great. This could for sure be considered a slow burn and I'm actually currently watching the TV show Sharp Objects by the same author and this is paced much better than that. There's a couple things I didn't particularly thing got solved or like how they went at the end but overall a great movie.

This film wasn't as bad as some people say it was. It was actually good. It was a pretty nice psycho thriller. It had me guessing at times and there really weren't any dull moments. This film was well done with just enough suspense to keep me interested. The acting in this film was great as well. Now, I'm not a big fan of Tyler Perry's films but his acting is good. He had a wonderful performance in this film playing Tannor Bolt, Nick Dunne's (Ben Affleck) lawyer. He was really perfect for the part. For me it was kind of weird seeing Neil Patrick Harris playing a serious roll as the crazy ex boy friend of Nick Dunne's (Ben Affleck) wife, Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike). Rosamund Pike and the parts she were in were well done! I mean she pulled that roll off! Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike) was allegedly killed by her husband Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck). From the beginning Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) is the suspect and the craziness starts from there. If you like mysteries/thrillers you won't be disappointed with this one.

Amy and Nick Dunne are young, stylish and charming. The immaculate dream couple? It seems so, at least on the face of it. But infidelity and financial troubles let the glamorous façade crumble. One morning, Amy disappears without a trace, and Nick becomes suspect. Did he kill his wife? The media depict him as an uncaring husband, and he's trying desperately to correct that image. But what if he really is the murderer everyone believes him to be?

"Gone Girl", based on the Gillian Flynn novel of the same name, is a masterful thriller, a sharp-sighted media satire and a cynical analysis of modern marriage. Flynn herself wrote the screenplay for the movie adaptation, and David Fincher turns the already disturbing story into something even darker. "Gone Girl" is a perfect fit for Fincher, as it is concerned with two of his favorite themes: gender issues and modern media. The main topic here is how the media are shaping our own identities. Nick Dunne has to adapt to the expectations of the public in order to survive. As his lawyer Tanner Bolt puts it: "This case is about what people think of you."

Amy and Nick both just play a character. They pretend to be a perfect couple. The movie suggests that pretending and being are not as far apart as we tend to think. When everyone plays along, the shallow masks are going to work. The much-maligned ending underlines this insight perfidiously. It's the point where "Gone Girl" becomes a pitch-black social satire. The last act isn't a thriller anymore, it's a grotesque caricature of modern relationships. I've never seen anything like it, and I can't praise Fincher enough for the risk he took with the last half an hour of this movie.

Ben Affleck is great as the insipid husband Nick. You love to hate him. Rosamund Pike is simply mind-blowing. You'll also see Neil Patrick Harris and Tyler Perry in unusual roles. My personal favorite is Carrie Coon as Nick's caring yet foul-mouthed sister Margo. She's the heart of this movie, because unlike everyone else, she genuinely speaks her mind. Kim Dickens as the clever detective Rhonda Boney is pretty approachable, too.

"Gone Girl" might be Fincher's most splendid masterpiece yet. This movie is so unsettling and cynical, it feels like it was directed by the love child of Alfred Hitchcock and Lars von Trier. If that's not awesome, I don't know what is.

I like it when a movie can keep me guessing until the end, and Gone Girl just did that. Most of the time I didn't know where this film was going, and each new twist and turn was a surprise. You can't help but get pulled into the story. The actors all gave excellent performances, as well. I don't think I'll ever be able to look at some of them the same way again. This movie is what a crime thriller should be.