A thread for David Fincher's adaptation of GONE GIRL

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Well reviewed, of course, with most of those reviews questioning whether the book and film are sexist (Gillian Flynn wrote both).

Every review I've read so far has been positive but sort of begrudgingly so. Like, yes it is well-made, but (to quote Anthony Lane) "so what?" I didn't like the book very much, but my wife did, so it's curious that she hasn't said peep one about the movie.

I thought the book was really good but the reviews of the movie seem to take everything at face value rather than the black comedy which I took from the book. tho it's worth saying that critics had this exact same problem with fight club.

I had to review Sharp Objects a few years ago but wasn't impressed enough to think Flynn was a thing.

and fwiw I thought the gender politics of the book were pretty sharp--if knowingly playing with certain cultural fantasies/nightmares that are sexist. can't really go into more detail on that without spoilers.

100% ready to believe fincher gets sloppy with whatever sexual politics people dig from the book, but I'm still pretty psyched to see it

i mean any thriller with tyler perry and neil patrick harris in the supporting cast i'd at least watch on hbo

that it's the kind of grand hollywood affair that would get oscar noms in slow years is just icing on the cake

for some reason was trying to avoid spoilers on this tho i hate the thought of seeing it

the circumstantial "controversy" headlines p much give stuff away tho

Like, yes it is well-made, but (to quote Anthony Lane) "so what?"

Not unlike The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Yeah - the book gets compared to the novel The Dinner a lot, and I feel like both are similar in terms of how adaptable they are to films. Both seem like they'd make great movies because at heart they're just plot-driven thrillers - but a lot of the darker subtler satirical stuff in both could be hard to pull off in a movie. Also Affleck just seems like totally the wrong guy for this part.

and I don't want to be spoiler-y BUT... this wouldn't be the first time Fincher has told stories with unreliable narrators and Rube Goldbergy plots, so he seems pretty well-equipped for that part of turning this into a movie. Wouldn't be surprised if Fincher's The Game was at least a modest influence on the book.

Fincher is a cool technician, but I'm generally not a fan when he goes cold technician. Which is to say, I like him best when he seems invested in the project and what it's trying to say/do (Seven, Social Network, Zodiac), and least when he's just doing a good job with shaky material (The Game, Dragon Tattoo, never made it through Button). I have the most trouble with "Fight Club" and "Panic Room." The latter is a pretty straight forward technical exercise, but it's got some great performances. Yoakam! The former ... after all these years I'm still not quite sure what to think. Subversive? Middlebrow? Nihilist? Idealistic? Fascist? Facile? No idea. Though yeah, it is well made!

Everyone's all thrilled by Affleck dong, but no one's giving proper credit to NPH rump.

I didn't last an hour into Dragon Tattoo. He's got a number of "so what?" entries in his catalog.

key to fight club is recognizing that it's all those things!

I sorta think affleck is perfect casting. the book does describe him as having a "punchable face" and all.

FWIW, I thought this was a MUCH better shotgun marriage between Fincher's cold elegance and lurid pulp than Dragon Tattoo.

(Faint praise, et al.)

Everyone in the book is punchable.

christ this was fucking amazing.

lookin fwd to this

it comes down to my wanting to watch Tyler Perry as Affleck's lawyer.

Hi I live under a rock and know nothing about this story -- so did Jon Stewart really spoil it on his show during the Affleck interview? Cuz I saw that clip and i'll be pissed if so!

movies that rely on twist endings to be worth seeing/interesting are not good movies

Your (dubious) assertion doesn't conflict with the fact that spoilers spoil

I'm usually slow out of the gate, so I didn't really know anything about this until a couple of days ago. In light of Zodiac and The Social Network, and a cursory glance at what it's about, very interested.

Going by the book, this is a tough call: is it really a spoiler if the spoiler/revelation/surprise happens relatively early? At what point is the twist actually the plot?

Just saw this. Thought it was pretty good.

Kinda ridiculous how many reviews are regurgitating the line that Fincher "elevates" the novel somehow, when almost everything they're praising the movie for comes directly from the book. It's a remarkably faithful adaptation.

Up there with Zodiac as his best, enjoyed it more if i'm honest.

one bright note at least

http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2014/10/2/6896365/ben-affleck-refused-to-wear-a-yankees-hat-in-gone-girl

almost everything they're praising the movie for comes directly from the book

didn't the author of the book write the screenplay?

yeah.

I had heard she rewrote some stuff to make it different. No?

Not much apparently.

Flabby last act and one plot stand I found needlessly distasteful, but otherwise, my fave Fincher in a while.

hit some of the same gleefully blackened vibe that I get from prime Verhoeven, though it underlines its specific thesis more than any of his movies ever did iirc

could do a Silence Of The Lambs style Oscar sweep.

Just read the book this week—super black-hearted, and a lot of fun. Reminded me of Jim Thompson's A Hell of a Woman. Not sure I need to see the movie, though, especially if it's super-faithful. I didn't picture the husband looking like Affleck at all; they should have cast the dude who played the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network. But then there'd be basically nobody in the cast with real drawing power, so...

gonna watch it in about half an hour

could do a Silence Of The Lambs style Oscar sweep.

Affleck's gonna have to get nominated first, and there's at least three or four biopic slots pre-filled this year.

didn't picture the husband looking like Affleck at all

Haven't read the book, but I'm amazed it's taken this long for someone to cast BAfflleck *because* of his innate smugness and not in spite of it.

granted I read the book after knowing about the casting, but damn if affleck didn't seem to fit perfectly with nick dunne as flynn describes him.

Well! This was a bore.

1:45 has to be some kind of record for a first act

is it a spoiler to big up nph as bizarro christian grey?

Alfred review really makin me not want to bother w this

hey should have cast the dude who played the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network.

Winklevoss guy would've at least made Amy's marrying him plausible, but Affleck is such an offensive nothing in this movie that it's a peculiar kind of punishment to endure him.

is it ridiculous that i'm still enough of a fincher-stan in 2014 that i'll watch this (tho inevitably when it comes to HBO since i never see anything in theaters anymore)?

From the movie version it’s not clear why Amy is so bad.

Iirc, this is one big problem I had with the book. Like, I didn't care, because I wasn't sure why she was doing what she was doing, exactly. I prefer the twisted neo-feminist underpinning of "The Last Seduction"s vilain, I suppose, to "Gone Girl."

i dunno i kinda felt like it was pretty clear why she was so AMAZING

"amazing

i doubt it!

fincher always has like 20 rumored projects for every film he actually makes.

in other news, i watched G.G. again and it's pretty great, isn't it? i still don't think they came up with a truly satisfying ending, but it's growing on me. i think this film is easier to like the farther away we get from all the "cultural commentary" on it which was mostly hot air.

hamm casting would've been interesting. i think the fact that affleck (whose persona is basically that of a likable doofus) plays the husband kind of rules out much real suspicion that he did it, while hamm's persona seems like he would be capable of such a thing. or maybe hamm is just less of a known quantity, which amounts to the same thing.

fincher movies are such a pleasure to watch, he just knows where to place the camera, doesn't he? the result doesn't really come across as fussy, even though his working methods are famously fussy.

one of the only contemporary directors to have the kind of stylistic and narrative assurance that hollywood could once (almost) take for granted.

Wow. I watched almost half of it again and fought the urge to throw the TV through the window. Knowing how Fincher's going to develop the story robs the movie of any suspense; instead I'm left watching this stump of an actor going through the motions of grief. In most other Fincher movies, yeah, I can appreciate his skill.

grief? affleck's character is experiencing a lot of things, but grief barely registers.

fortunately the character is also going through the "motions of grief"

God this movie is ponderous an hour in. I need the supposedly trashy parts to start popping.

this was the worst movie i've seen this year
fincher can put a movie together i guess because he kept me engaged though I think it's mostly i was exhausted
my main takeaway is that there are women capable of jamming bottles up their ass to frame a man for rape so way to go everyone involved: you've further poisoned the culture with your barbed take on poisonous culture
what a horseshit hate film

agree completely, this was some truly dumb shit.

I'm piling on. Yeah, this was fucking dumb garbage and I felt very much at odds with the 90% of people I've talked to about it. Similar conflict about Her, but that's another thread.

Fincher is frustrating. Amazing talent but kinda dense about his choice of material.

thought it was a horseshit hate novel, have avoided the film

Saw this a second time last night (originally saw it in the theater on release). Whatever problems with the themes, it's pretty great as a coffee table book and structurally. And, NPH aside, the characters really have subtle shades instead of being simple archetypes. And Tyler Perry slays.

a coffee table book is something else tho

Same as Easy above--thought this was better a second time at home. Checked back, and I gave it a 7.0 two years ago, so I did like it. But I wrote that the two leads were just okay, and I found both performances very effective last night, especially Rosamund Pike. She finds the perfect gray area between the character's intelligence and early charm, the empathy you feel for her, and the blank monster that makes it all happen. Liked Perry, Kim Dickens (who I know from House of Cards now, and didn't then), Emily Ratajkowski, and even Patrick Fugit a lot too. If I were married, I'm sure I'd find lots to contemplate here.

i love this movie. surprised slocki & slam dunk didn't dig it, although I think part of that may have been related to the fact that I read the book before I saw the film & they didn't

i think some of the argument upthread about it—the nature of amy as a villain—was kind of the *point* of the film...

I guess I can see MRA types latching onto this but that's like when assholes latch onto wolf of wall street or scarface & miss the point of the ending

Quote from the author:

"For me, [feminism is] also the ability to have women who are bad characters … the one thing that really frustrates me is this idea that women are innately good, innately nurturing. In literature, they can be dismissably bad – trampy, vampy, bitchy types – but there's still a big pushback against the idea that women can be just pragmatically evil, bad and selfish ... I don't write psycho bitches. The psycho bitch is just crazy – she has no motive, and so she's a dismissible person because of her psycho-bitchiness."

Has anyone thought to tie this movie to “the current moment”

don't give them any ideas

i think its extremely relevant (and misunderstood)

This was entertaining as a thriller and satisfied my need to see Ben Affleck being punished, but it (and the book) seemed like a mess, morally. It's "straw woman: the movie".

thank you for illustrating what i mean by 'misunderstood'

lmao

great movie, tho tbh I kinda wish it didn't include the Scoot McNairy scene

So what did I misunderstand? I had the feeling I was misreading it, but I don't think the film's very clear about what it's trying to say.

the author quote immediately before the "one year passes" marker above seems to get at it

Thought of Gone Girl yesterday after seeing Phantom Thread.

And honestly thought Phantom Thread, while astonishing in acting and design, would have benefitted from Woodcock's livelihood being threatened at some point by his actions (wrong thread to go any further on that).

xpost

Right, obviously that makes sense - but I don't think the movie does a good job of making Amy much more than a (Flynn's words) "motiveless psycho"

i hated this movie but not as much as i’ve hated all the books trying to be “the next GONE GIRL”

This, moreorless:

But there are moments, several of them, in which Nick’s unsavory feelings about his complicated missing wife and about women in general—feelings that might be charitably summed up as “bitches be crazy”—seem indistinguishable from the filmmaker’s own vision of Amy as a black hole of ineffable female needs, moods, and desires

(From here.)

Thought of Gone Girl yesterday after seeing Phantom Thread.

I would not have, ever.

if you watched this movie and thinks Fincher likes, respects or agrees with the Nick character then idk what to say

if you're not cheering for Amy by the end of it you're doing it wrong

You shouldn't be cheering for anyone by the end of it! (Maybe Margo.)

still amazed they created an entire universe where no one has heard of a divorce

Yeah my impression was that they were both horrible people.

of course they are! but one is just an asshole and the other is charming and diabolically insane

i'm amazed y'all remember the plot of this thing

Why does it matter if the woman is actually a psychopath? This is total respectability politics bs for what the movie is about: men’s fear of losing preferred status in a system that rewards our own dehumanizing selfishness

The reaction of people being to her violent and extreme response to which acts as if this systemic inequity is then justified .... idk I think this movie is one of those times when it’s already about the things you guys are trying to bring to bear in critique of it

Rewording that first sentence: that ppl act like her violent and extreme response is a justification of this inequity ....

Losing preferred status is less it maybe than being about losing *control.* I can’t think of anything more resonant in all the insecure responses from men to “the current moment”

Also @ chuck Tatum how is she “motiveless”????? She explains her entire purpose!

I was gonna say, I seem to remember a key monologue.

affleck is a failed writer; she's shown to be the more successful writer. seems like the point of the odd ending is to show affleck being written into a reversed version of an archetypal 'woman's story' of marriage, one that was itself echoed in her fabrication of their story in her diary entries. now he goes about the house in fear for his life, unable to penetrate her inscrutable thoughts or read her emotions accurately. and now (inescapably?) he is trapped in a joyless performance that denies him any possibility of authentic human development through knowing and being known by another, intimately. it would be bonkers to have her return and have BOTH the detective and his lawyer (both reality-principle characters) believe that she had framed him, in a movie whose ultimate aims were in some sense realistic or whose genre were in some sense 'straight'. but they do because that serves to reinforce the sense in which affleck and pike are bound together in confinement from the world - she has trapped him. not with the baby, exactly, but with her revision of the myth of marriage, for which the baby is the dumb conventional social sanction, as validated by the performance for the media and the nancy grace or whoever knockoff. so the genre is one in which she must play out 'psycho' desires, out of vengeance, to magnify some version of the desires at play in 'realistic' analogues of the underlying plot of love and happy married life. if i quite had a read of the fantasy projection it is articulating, what i'd want to suggest is that it does it despite the risk of seeming to court MRA appeal because the MRA fantasy about women and men is one that it must activate to reject. not sure if it does that, though.

interesting that it goes to the trouble of having both their parents figure in the story, presumably in order to back-stop the interpretation of their roles in the marriage or in the roles of their self-scripted performances. they make a big deal out of her parents (mom, but dad somehow wholly on board with it?) stealing, or not stealing, but improving upon her childhood and life by writing her into a fictional character. affleck gets a sick mom and a mentally ill dad (who forgets himself, his family, apparently becomes just a font of vile misogyny). in her case at least, that makes the reclamation of the authority of 'writer' a clear goal. not as sure about him.

curious too that when he's conferring with his sister at the end, and she's wrecked by the news that he might stay because of the baby or whatever, she says 'i knew you before we were born', which sounds to me like the movie's somehow sanctioning the hilarious rumors the nancy grace knockoff feeds about the twins being too close (in the airport, the other passenger glares at affleck and says 'twin sister' in total disgust). not as literally true, but as one of the elements in the movie's myth-rewriting work. with his sister, his twin, there's a claim to knowledge of each other that somehow prefigures their birth into the world, i.e. society, into their social and gender roles as formed by that society. but as pike underscores after she has returned and they've had it out, perfection of the knowledge they have of one another is one of the key things at stake in their marriage, as marriage, too. so (as is already the case in real life) marriage is in competition with other forms of relationship in which people can find fulfillment. (this probably has something to do with why they make his affair be with a student, and him be a teacher: then we're on the same ground, life of the mind turning unplatonic, or over-poetic, sketched in just enough to allude to that cliche).

Interesting

wtf?

There are still tickets available to join me on the Avalon Waterways GONE GIRL CRUISE this September 15 - 22.

Details, deals, and full itinerary at the link below!https://t.co/Ct6KKnOGYO pic.twitter.com/KjRTe7RDkE

— Gillian Flynn (@TheGillianFlynn) July 23, 2022

this was one of the worst pieces of shit i've ever seen

lol

9 years old today (total classic, my fav fincher)

how was the cruise?

i need to rewatch this, i think i would enjoy it more now than i did at the time