Friday, January 23, 2015

"When two people love each other and they can't make that work, that's the real tragedy." - Amy Dunne in "Gone Girl"

A marriage is a byproduct of the co-existence of two personalities. Sometimes you spend your entire life with the person yet you might not know them completely. "Gone Girl" is a dark tale of a marriage gone so awry that it is impossible to set it right again.

Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy Dunne(Rosamund Pike) are celebrating their fifth anniversary. Instead of a date night, Nick finds himself in an empty home with his wife missing. The police are brought in and it becomes a sensational news story. We see Nick through the eyes of Amy as we read her diary. Is Nick really a sociopath or a grieving husband? Is he capable of murder? Was Amy the devoted wife? The second half of the movie deals with a different side of Amy and catapults you in the opposite direction. The twists and turns come to an unexpected yet not totally plausible ending. 

The problem I see with Rosamund Pike is that she is wooden. Amy is a one-dimensional character but Pike does nothing to add depth or layers to her personality. She seems to play the extension of herself in "Die Another Day", which might be fine for a James Bond movie but does nothing to a thriller like "Gone Girl". 
Ben Affleck is convincing as the troubled husband who does not understand his complex wife. He also depicts a cool and level-headed spouse that can be easily mistaken as indifferent and apathetic, which forces the audience to suspect him as a murderer. 
David Fischer, well versed in his craft, showcases the beauty of not just the small town in Missouri but also moments during their dating period, which paints a picture of a potentially wonderful marriage.  

This is not a story of the American dream  of a young couple with two kids and a white picket-fence house. It is of two warped individuals who unable to deal with the realities of economic downtime, turn to their own means of amusement. 

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