Don’t Go See Gone Girl.
(Welcome to my first movie review. Mature content and spoiler alerts are coming.)
Don’t get me wrong, I love a good murder mystery. I could rave about Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians all day. The problem with Ben Affleck’s new murder mystery Gone Girl, is that there is no murder. From what I could ascertain from the previews, the movie seemed to be marketing itself as a murder mystery in which likeable Affleck gets blamed for his wife’s demise.
However, there is no murder, no homicide, nothing. His wife, played by the beautiful Rosamund Pike, is simply gone. For two hours we have what continues to be a tedious drawn out movie that doesn’t seem to know what its own plot is. As if this wasn’t arduous enough, the movie actually counts down the days she’s “gone” as if to say, “Look, we’ve counted all the way up to this really high number now, are you bored yet?
The film starts out talky, and then wife Amy is missing. The plot had more holes in it than a box of Cheerios. (I just made that up; did it work?) For example, when Affleck’s wife is missing, he doesn’t even seem that concerned. As if to explain, the character comments that he normally doesn’t react to things. React Ben, it’s a movie! You’re trying to hold our interest. If you don’t act like you care, why should we? Mr. Affleck sure is a looker, really easy on the eyes, but I’ve heard he’s a better director than actor, and this movie proved the rumor true.
Shaky Plot
As it turned out, Amy, Pike’s character, was mad at Nick, Affleck’s character, due to money problems and an extramarital affair. Wow, how original. They’ve both been done to death. (Sorry, I forgot Ms. Pike is alive and well throughout this travesty–no death occurred!) Give me a break.
So, the “Gone Girl” continues to be gone for a while. The whole time she keeps eating. Kit Kat bars, chips, ice cream, you name it. I assumed it was to further change her appearance so no one would know she was the “Gone Girl” and not the dead girl.
She ends up manipulating Neil Patrick Harris’s character into helping her. (Harris is a big star; he took too small a part to make it worth a trip to the set.) While she’s roping him into helping her, she ties ropes around her body, in order to frame him for her kidnapping. Why? Oh, so she can return to Affleck, the man she hated enough to frame in the first place. Presto chango, she’s thin and beautiful again even though she refused to go to the gym after Harris urged her to. (Is this a boring review? Don’t blame me–it was a boring movie!)
She returns to the civilized world complaining that Harris had kidnapped, tied her up, and raped her before she killed him with a box cutter. All the officers look at each other and ask how she could have gotten access to, and used, a box cutter if she was tied up. Yet, the police decide to believe her anyway and let her return to Affleck. (Maybe this is why I’m so down on policemen. See Ferguson: Right or Wrong http://wp.me/p5jxvv-2y.)
In the end, he takes her back knowing she tried to frame him. She pressures him into staying with her although she hated him enough to leave eight weeks prior. This is inexplicable since she had loving parents she could have returned to.
I forgot something–she ends up pawning Harris’s unborn child newly conceived inside her (can you believe this plot?) onto Affleck. This woman is a criminal who is now pregnant with somebody else’s baby. He knows she’s a murderer (no genius detective work here–she confessed to him) and that it’s not his baby. When he complains, she admits she’s the “C” word. Irregardless, two people that hated each other so much they did illegal (her) and immoral (him) acts stay together in the end.
You know what I say, they deserve each other. Now be gone! You are boring me further, and now you’re boring my readers.
Movie viewers, what do you think? Should I have gone to see Interstellar when I had the chance, or did you enjoy Gone Girl? I look forward to your views.
