Generally the movie was well written, acted and directed and was a lot of fun to watch. More specifically the first 5/6 of Gone Girl was very well done, but the ending 1/6 not so much. I have to wonder if they vetted this, or any other ending with a focus group, because in my opinion this one was clearly flawed.
In terms of genre, the movie is a mix, but in most general terms could be bucketed as “super-smart schemer sociopath manipulates everyone to get what she wants.” In the beginning you don’t know what the wife’s narration really is, that many of the scenes she describes are not real, but part of a grand and complicated revenge plot. As a result you get a who-done-it effect early on, not quite sure when and/or if the husband is lying or truthful and why. Then midway through, the scheme is revealed and the movie becomes more of a battle of wits for the highest stakes. All of this goes very well so long as you’re willing to suspend the disbelief that anyone could or would construct so elaborate a plan or that the husband would be so completely clueless that his wife of five years, girlfriend of two, was completely nuts. Excepting that, it’s great until the last part.
There’s a scene near the end where the wife, who has just returned from being “gone” with stories of kidnapping, rape and self-defense killing, tells this fabricated story to a room full of police and FBI investigators. She comes off sounding ridiculous – the theater audience around me was laughing – and the detective that was first going after the husband starts pointing out the story’s holes and absurdities with basic questioning. At this point I was sure the film would end with the master schemer arrested, but instead a higher ranking cop tells the detective to knock it off. There the story went wrong and stays wrong through the end.
I’ve heard there was some controversy over the scene where an ex-boyfriend explains how the master schemer had framed him for rape as revenge for some wrong he committed. A reviewer remarked on NPR that if the story hadn’t been written by a woman it probably would have been a big blaming-the-victim in sexual assault issue. I’m not sure that’s fair, as that scene doesn’t imply anything about sexual assault in general, though it does suggest that a man framed with enough care is essentially screwed. However, historically in the US the benefit of the doubt has gone against the victims of rape, so I can see why some would find the scene and its implication that women can fake being raped offensive. I find the controversy interesting but was not persuaded by the argument to the point it influenced how I feel about the movie.
Overall I think Gone Girl was very entertaining and well worth watching.
3.5/5