Review: Gone Girl

Photo courtesy of Jhon Ahmad

Photo courtesy of Jhon Ahmad

Do not go and see “Gone Girl” with your mother. Heed my advice. I speak from experience. I made the terrible mistake of going to see “Gone Girl” with my mother.

“Gone Girl”—based off of Gillian Flynn’s New York Times best seller I didn’t actually read—is a suspenseful two-and-a-half hours that leaves one questioning the concept of marriage. At least, that’s what I got from it.

“Gone Girl” takes its time with a somewhat generic introduction of the main characters and drawn out setting of the scene. Then everything takes a sharp left to Crazytown.

Nick Dunn (Ben Affleck) comes home to find a glass coffee table smashed on the floor and his wife Amy Dunn (Rosamund Pike) missing. What follows is a bunch of plot thickeners, flashbacks and racy scenes in which my mother would turn to me and say, “Close your eyes, Catherine.”

Neil Patrick Harris takes on a new role as the past-boyfriend-now-creepy-stalker. After seeing him as Barney Stinson one too many times, it was hard for me to take him seriously. Pretty much everyone is a psychopath in this movie.

Affleck’s acting is usually quite hollow, but it fits perfectly with this role. He never needed to be dripping with emotion, if anything, being absolutely hollow during the film just brought more depth to his character. I’d never heard of Pike prior to “Gone Girl”; however, her acting blends with Affleck’s to create the illusion of a loving couple one second and then a psychopathic couple the next.

Ending with a cliffhanger, “Gone Girl” skews your perception of the word trustworthy and makes you question just how dysfunctional the main characters’ relationship actually is.

I’d recommend “Gone Girl” for a Netflix night to yourself. Just do not see it on a date or with your mother. Especially not with your mother.