Movie Review: Gone Girl (2014)

The movie stars Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Sela Ward, Carrie Coon and Kim Dickens.

When my wife and I finally got around to watching this on DVD last night, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from it. I had heard some good things about the movie as well as some bad. But, all I really knew about it was there were a lot of people talking about some of the sex scenes in it and, because of that, I couldn’t help but wonder if this would turn out to be a soft core porn film disguised as a drama/thriller. However, as it turns out, the movie was actually better than I was expecting it to be.

I think the thing that really wins me over about this movie is the fact there really isn’t a true good guy in this. Yes, the wife, Amy (Pike), fakes her death and frames her husband for murder. However, the husband, Nick (Affleck), wasn’t exactly a saint. On some level at least, it could even be argued he deserved it. After all, he was fooling around with a woman who was young enough to be his daughter.  

In essence, you could even argue they deserved each other. And, I think that realization is what made this movie so entertaining simply because it was difficult to tell how it was going to end.

As far as the sex scenes go, there were quite a few of them. However, unlike many other movies we’ve watched, they seemed to at least fit in with the plot rather than simply be gratuitous and were short enough to prevent them from being the most memorable part of the movie. In other words, while the movie probably could have done just fine without them, it wasn’t anything that really made me think any less of it.

This is a pretty interesting psychological drama that does a good job of keeping you guessing about what is going to happen next. If you haven’t seen this film before, it is worth taking the time to rent it.

My Grade: A