Quartile rating: 8/10 · 2 ratings
With his wife's disappearance having become the focus of an intense media circus, a man sees the spotlight turned on him when it's suspected that he may not be innocent.
Gone Girl is a razor-sharp psychological thriller with a genuinely audacious plot that pulls the rug from under the audience at the midpoint — the dual-narrative twist is executed with precision and sustained tension. Fincher's direction is typically controlled and cold, but the cinematography, while polished and atmospheric, doesn't quite reach the singular visual invention of his best work (Zodiac, Se7en). Rosamund Pike delivers a career-defining, chilling performance, and Ben Affleck is shrewdly cast against type. The film is distinctively Fincher in tone — clinical, cynical, darkly satirical about media and marriage — giving it a strong novelty score for its singular voice and unflinching nastiness. The ending is deliberately, provocatively unsatisfying by design, which some will find haunting and others frustrating; it earns points for daring but loses some for feeling slightly abrupt in its final beats.