Gone Girl

gonegirl_missingposter

I was excited when I heard that my favorite book from 2012 was being turned into a movie, but the more I thought about it, the more I became wary of the idea. How could this crazy book be turned into a movie? It alternates back and forth between the husband who is a major suspect for his wife’s disappearance and the missing wife’s tell-tale diary. That’s all before a major surprise halfway through the book and a crazy ending that made some people angry, but I loved it and thought it fit perfectly. I felt everything that took place in the book with all the twists and turns was too much for a movie. I thought what I loved about the book just couldn’t translate into a decent movie. I think on some levels, that’s my issue with the movie, even though overall, I thought it was a decent thriller.

gonegirl_amydiary

I did have hope for the movie since it was directed by David Fincher and the screenplay was written by the book’s author, Gillian Flynn. I feel they did possibly the best job they could have turning the novel into a thrilling movie, but some of the nuances in the book were lost while trying to fit so much story into a typical movie length. There were parts from the novel that I felt were glossed over or told so quickly that they didn’t even have time to sink in for the audience before the movie moved onto the next plot point.

I think it might have worked better with a different actress playing Amy, the missing wife. At times, I thought Rosamund Pike was talking so quickly and quietly that I could barely catch what she was saying. I recently discovered she is British and I am wondering if she had trouble keeping up her American accent so she tried to go through her lines quickly. I have noticed this with some actors trying to do an American accent. They sometimes mumble to get through the sentence, but the audience loses what is actually being said. What I thought was one of the more important parts of the novel was Amy’s discussion of the “cool girl” and I think that was really lost in the film. It is mentioned in a voiceover, but the audience doesn’t really get to consider the point of what she is trying to say before it jumps right back into the next item on the plot checklist.

Novels get the luxury to have more character development than films typically do, but I think it can still be successful in a movie. I thought there was better character development with Ben Affleck’s character of Nick. I thought the audience really got a feel for what Nick was going through and what an ass his character could be at the same time. I just wished there had been more character development with Amy’s character. That could have possibly been related to the issue with the actress mumbling her lines or the director not getting the most out of his actress when she was on the screen. She seemed more one-sided in the movie than in the book.

I know a film is not going always going to live up to a novel, but I do want a movie to stand on its own. I really wanted to walk away from this film loving it like I did the book. I think if I had never read the book, I would have thought the film was decent, but not sure what the big fuss was with the book. I think if this book was made into a limited television series of 6-8 episodes, then it would have been fantastic.

Grade: B+

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