Now That Weve Seen Gone Girl, Does It Live Up To Expectations? Lets Discuss On Friday, the New York Film Festival screened the world premiere of Gone Girl, David Finchers adaptation of Gillian Flynns best-seller. Starring Ben Affleck as Nick Dunne and Rosamund Pike as Amy, his wife who goes missing, all eyes are on how the film lives up to the celebrated novel. Weve already confirmed that the ending isnt as altered as previously imagined, but there is so much more to unpack within the 149-minute fever dream. HuffPost Entertainment editors Matthew Jacobs and Erin Whitney attended the screening and were left with more than enough to consider about cool girls, manipulative pregnancies and anniversary gifts gone awry. (Warning: Spoilers ahead for anyone who hasnt read the book.)Jacobs: Gone Girl is arguably falls most anticipated movie, and I can now say that it lived up to all of my expectations. Its been a year and a half since I read the novel, so I was more concerned with the film capturing the right tone than adhering to certain plot beats. With that in mind, Fincher has crafted an impeccable treatment of Flynns story. It pulsates (literally, at times, thanks to Trent Reznors threatening score) with the mystique of a macabre character study and the starkness of a rote crime procedural -- even though it doesnt feel rote at all. With adaptations of novels as layered as this one, structure is often the first thing that suffers. Instead of establishing a film that can stand alone, they feel like the result of a checklist that ensured the right milestones from the book are satisfied. Thats what I worried would happen to Gone Girl, with its dual-narrator structure and heavy relationship with characters pasts. But Flynn does smart things with the script -- the dialogue rarely feels expositional, even though these characters must do a lot of explaining throughout. And Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike carry the film; Affleck with a detached rage and Pike with a calculated chill. I am thoroughly impressed, even if the final 10 minutes could be a bit more concentrated. You read the novel more recently, though, Erin. Did the movie hold up for you?Whitney: I hate to admit it, but I cant deny the overwhelming disappointment I felt throughout the film. Full disclosure: I had literally just finished reading Flynns novel days ago and completely loved every terrifying, brilliant page of it. I think that when you truly love a book that much, youre going to find yourself let down by any visual adaptation to some degree, and thats what happened for me. First though, let me state that Finchers adaptation is a good movie with some of the best casting and performances Ive seen all year. Whether you read the book or not, there is still something enjoyable and rewarding to take away from the film. But then again, Im a perfectionist and a harsh critic, and when something I love in one form isnt translated as well in another, I feel cheated. For me, Finchers film played like a fun, entertaining recap of Flynns novel, harvesting the best gems of the story that make it exciting and thrilling. Yet the film doesnt divulge the dark, twisted complexities beneath the surface, the nuances of Amys psychopathy, Nicks sickened resentment and their ultimate addiction to destroying one another. Flynns ability to continually flip the readers sympathy and hatred for her characters doesnt translate as strongly to the screen, which is unfortunate since that is truly the defining achievement of her original story. In the film we arent given strong reason to despise Amy wholly nor understand the depth of her passionate insanity -- instead of mutilating herself on the bathroom floor, she calmly drains her blood via a needle and tube while reading a book, and her murderous act in the films latter stages is played as triumphant. Some of these moments are even comical in the film, which overall had more humor than I felt suited the story, trashy fun humor that read like an inside joke. I wanted Gone Girl to be darker and dirtier, in the vein of Seven, but it felt lighter and too fun. Did this element of humor stand out to you, Matt, as much as it did to me?Jacobs: I wasnt that disenchanted by the humor, but I do agree theres an inside joke sentiment running throughout the movie. Flynn seems to be writing for the people who read her book, which, in all fairness, will probably comprise a good bulk of the moviegoers who catch Gone Girl in theaters. She trims the edges of her story to fit a 2.5-hour format. Without the finesses of the character internalizations one can only glean from the more limitless pages of a novel, the movie does come with a whiff of melodrama. But sandwiching those hysterics between humor, for me, was a necessary respite, mostly because it doesnt distract from the more wrenching moments, like when Amy bludgeons herself with a hammer or when another character collapses upon her in a crimson deluge of blood. I think this movie captures a sense of cold calculation, which might mean, at times, truncating the characters more inner workings in favor of emphasizing how astute their instabilities are. What doesnt work for me, on a critical level -- and I very much understand this m.o. among critics and fans -- is when a movie like this is judged largely in comparison to the rest of the directors cannon. Fincher is working from a source material that commands a different atmosphere (and certainly a different interest level) than Seven or Fight Club or The Social Network. Sure, Gone Girl may be a lot noisier than Zodiac and more restrained than The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but Im more interested in the way Fincher caters to the many people who want an accessible, big-budget thriller as well as those who can appreciate its stylistic nuances. Im impressed, if not unsurprised, that Fincher has accomplished that.Whitney: I have to agree with you that Im definitely in the camp of not wanting to compare a directors latest work to his oeuvre. I strive to avoid succumbing to that temptation, but with someone like Fincher I find that even harder to do, and lately Ive been craving more of the grittiness of his earlier work. And I can definitely understand the decision to sacrifice the subtleties and latent darkness of the characters as a means to tell a more cohesive story. Sacrifices must be made somewhere, and I think Flynn made apt choices with her screenplay. Yet still, I dont think a story as rich and densely layered as Gone Girl is most suitable for a big-screen adaptation, mainly due to the time constraints. I cant help but wonder what it would look like as a miniseries. The era of the cinematic anthology TV series is in full swing right now, with FXs Fargo and HBOs True Detective proving that more can be accomplished with a 10-hour movie format broken up into episodes than with a roughly three-hour feature. While Im not a fan of remakes, I do sort of hope that one day Fincher or another filmmaker will take Gone Girl down the anthology route so all of its delicious, psychotic and haunting fragments can be hashed out. Till then we have the film, and it is good and it does the job fine. Its like enjoying an incredible dish at a restaurant then going home and attempting to recreate it -- the overall flavor is there, but somethings still missing. Or maybe I just need some distance from the book to better appreciate the film as a singular entity.Jacobs: I love that thought, Erin. Gone Girl would have made a stellar miniseries. In that format, it really could have employed Amys and Nicks bifurcated points of view in a more substantial way than the movie can. But since thats not what were left with, Id call Gone Girl a resounding success.Gone Girl opens in theaters on Friday, Oct. 3.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 17:51:18 +0000
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