plug: Gone Girl (2014)

David Fincher's suburban noir is a gothic portrait of a miserable marriage.

If there is one thing I’ve learned to be true, it’s this: we love a good controversy.

It’s evident in the entertainment we consume, the social figures we follow, and the politics that control our attention.

And controversy is the beating heart of David Fincher and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, an adaptation of Flynn’s postmodern mystery by the same name. It’s what teases and hooks and shocks through an ice-cold whodunnit where you’re not entirely sure who the victim is. Is it Amy, a New York socialite living in Missouri who suddenly disappears on the morning of her fifth anniversary? Or Nick, her husband and the prime suspect in her disappearance?

Most of you likely already know the twist at the center of Gone Girl and the controversy that ensued. Even so, Gone Girl is worth watching for Fincher’s meticulous eye for human behavior and Flynn’s air-tight plotting in this suburban noir. The filmmakers make use of every frame and line of dialogue to slowly-but-grippingly reveal clues that only further complicate the case. As investigators and reporters look closer at Nick and Amy’s personal histories, Ben Afleck’s indifferent sighs and ill-timed smiles and Rosamund Pike’s duplicitous diary readings reveal paradoxical motives.

Do you think this looks like a man who is concerned that his wife is missing? Neither does the public, thus the controversy begins to close in on Nick with the help of swarms of reporters, devilish talk show hosts, and never-ending news cycles hungry for viewers.

Gone Girl is as much a cynical exploration of mass media and mob mentality as it’s a gothic portrait of a violently miserable marriage.

Gone Girl is another entry in Fincher’s ongoing exploration into the heart of darkness. In many ways, it is a kindred spirit to The Social Network in its depiction of ruthless, brilliant individuals carrying out their revenge fantasies to horrifying conclusions. For Mark, it’s a fuck you to the social gatekeepers by means of technology. For the “villain” of Gone Girl, it’s a fuck you to the myth of the Cool Girl by means of murder.

Both films ask chilling questions of its characters: How far are they willing to poison their soul to get what they want? How much will they be aided by the unwitting masses? What darkness lies beneath their most base desires?