By Kristin Wilinkiewicz | Co-Editor-in-Chief
****1/2
4.5/5 stars
You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s…
Too late and you have no idea who to trust. And Gone Girl definitely drives home the idea “trust no one”.
Based on a New York Times best-seller, it’s a film that opens as a crime drama; a man comes home to find his wife missing, with signs that a struggle may have taken place. From the start, you suspect that something isn’t quite right, and that someone isn’t telling the truth.
But anyone who tells you this film is just a “crime-drama” is missing the point… Several points, in fact. It is constantly taking the way you think about characters and situations, and turning them on their head. At no point in the film’s two-and-a-half-hour run time do you have time to take a breath. Your head is trying to piece together the story from the first to the last words spoken.
Most importantly, though, the film is sinister and dark—at times it feels as if you’re watching animals stuck in traps, desperately trying to find a way out, even if the solution is bloody. These aspects of the film are only highlighted by the chilling, ambient score that accompanies it.
And Gone Girl will leave you with a lot more to think about than you did when you walked in with your girlfriend or boyfriend. A quick look at twitter will reveal the horrified viewers exclaiming things like “I never want to get married!” And, in a way, the film is about the horrors of marriage and domestic life. It’s meant to scare you. The questions that drive the film are “Who did I marry?” and “What has marriage done to us?”
Unfortunately, I can’t explain much more about the film, since much of its allure is in the plot’s twists and turns, including a colossal reveal half-way through the film.
Of course, every other aspect of the film is just as high a caliber, so if you’re even considering seeing Gone Girl, do yourself a favor and spend the $10 and two and a half hours.
