After seeing the trailer for this movie, I was expecting a crime mystery and a courtroom drama, much like A Cry in the Dark; the material made me wonder if moments would feel like Taken (2008) or its ilk. I had no idea, however, that it would ultimately feel like Fatal Attraction (1987), and leave me gasping for air. David Fincher's newest thriller Gone Girl is unquestionably one of the most intense dramas I've ever seen. I gasped aloud several times -- which I don't normally do in cinemas -- not because anything leaps out at us, but because it takes us on such a violent roller coaster of emotional connections and clues to its mystery.
Fincher, who notoriously calculates every facet of his films better than his crew, seems a perfect fit for Gillian Flynn's incredible script. Her tight, provocative dialogue and genius pacing paired with his control of atmosphere and tension make this film immeasurably rich. Morbidly funny and mordantly acerbic, this film had me giggling and gasping in places I neither predicted nor particularly wanted to. Fincher and Flynn navigate the thick, heavy plot with grace and style, breaking free of chronological storytelling to present us with a thematic and logistical maze. At each turn, they challenge us to declare our sympathies and allegiances before lifting the veil on our worst fears. Add the fierce talents of his actors, and this film is endlessly watchable, if you have the stomach for it.
Rosamund Pike releases a tempest of strength in this powerhouse role. She turns from fearful victim to brilliant villain, beautiful trophy to ravenous monster, in intimately nuanced moments. Ben Affleck dominates in a role that demands -- indeed, works partly because of -- his stony visage and faraway gaze, and he gives it to us with emotional complexity and guarded virility. Neil Patrick Harris matches their energy and skill (though, sadly, not their screen time) with horrific exactitude and chilling eroticism that I've never seen from him before. And Tyler Perry (whom, I confess, I've never bothered to watch act before) presents us with disguised flair in a very funny and surprisingly direct performance as Affleck's character's attorney.
I want to take some time to talk about the film's horrific themes, though, and how they manifest particularly in the titular character. Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike), as the title explicitly implies, is our damsel in distress. She is also (SPOILER ALERT) a psychotic murderer and conniving "bitch", as she is called several times. Some have accused this film of promoting a misogynist agenda, largely because Amy is both so stereotypically female and so monstrous. She's skinny, white, blonde, and wealthy; she's artistic, domestic, and narcissistic; she's clever, manipulative, nagging, and cold. She uses especially female concerns to attack the men around her: She accuses an ex of rape, she seduces a man to harvest his sperm and kill him, and she seeks pregnancy to keep her husband bound to her.
The argument that villainous female characters are harmful to feminist art doesn't hold much water, because many people find villains intriguing (think of the recent spike in "antiheroes" in mainstream media, such as Breaking Bad and House of Cards). And consider the psychological attention filmmakers give to "bad bitches" in even more controversial films such as Fatal Attraction (1987) and Basic Instinct (1992), or even in Medea and Macbeth. Even these "evil" portrayals are arguably progressive because, in showing that villainy is gender-blind, they level the playing field. That's all a conversation for another time, but my point is that the labelling of Amy as a misogynistic image of woman is dangerously shallow. But analyzing her stereotype-laden character is wildly provocative.
I have a theory that makes this complex discussion even more mesmerizing. Several elements of the film suggest that it could be viewed as satire. Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) is as stereotypically male as Amy is female. Their archetypal union in marriage is also all too familiar. The darkly comic humor in their failing marriage and past family drama reveals a thread of biting bitterness that the graceful film broadly and suspiciously tries to gloss over. Bizarre comedy and extravagantly overwrought character tropes -- in the tried-and-true, sensitive, capable hands of both Fincher and Flynn -- suggest to me that there is a lot more going on beyond the otherwise offensively straightforward images of this film.
However, one problem remains in my estimation. Rape still seems to be largely taboo in mainstream media, and when portrayed is often simplified as a straightforward plot device. We don't often see women making false rape claims in films -- which unfortunately and damagingly happens in real life, let's not forget -- but Gone Girl surprisingly puts a stake in it. And, to my endless confusion, the woman who makes this false rape claim is a psychotic, manipulative "bitch" who seeks to ruin and kill the men in her life. I don't know that our culture needs a high-profile example of a sexual woman who uses a rape claim as a legally unquestioned weapon to punish men (for a crime, the film pointedly points out, as mean as losing sexual interest in the woman and disliking her gifts of neckties). Not to mention that the man who supposedly raped her is cast with a slight, anything-but-physically-dominant man; the implication, of course, is that an apparently weak man wouldn't rape a woman (laughably inaccurate), and now said man is sympathetic (more so when we think of his unfair punishment by a government that protects the villain) and the woman is comparatively more wicked (in part because her virulent sexuality has successfully emasculated her former partner).
As you can tell, I'm of two minds on this, and I'm actually okay with that. I think David Fincher wants us to be blown away by how complicated and subversive his new film is. In conclusion, I loved Gone Girl. And my lasting impression is that this is one of the most complex meditations on gender roles that I've ever seen. Its implications are not remotely clear-cut, and should inspire a lot of valuable discussion about feminism, marriage, misogyny, mental disorders, art, violence, and the media.
IMDb: Gone Girl
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