Showing posts with label Gone Girl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gone Girl. Show all posts
Gone Girl Review: A Satire for Our Days
Gone Girl
Director: David Fincher
Writer: Gillian Flynn
Starring: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry
In our culture, overreaction saturates us. It's everywhere. If you boot up the internet or turn on cable news, you're confronted by face saving to extreme degrees, and you can be coerced into going along with it. Something bad happened in another part of the world and it doesn't actually affect us? Scorched earth policy. Let's get 'em. A drunk celebrity upstaged another celebrity at an awards show? He's a sign of the disintegrating fabric of society. Ben Affleck got cast as Batman? Someone needs to die.
Speaking of Ben Affleck and people dying, let's talk about Gone Girl.
Director David Fincher's latest film internalizes those cultural anxieties and our poor reactions to the surprises life throws at us. Affleck and Rosamund Pike, who turns in a performance that yanks stardom away from the ether, play a married couple with problems. Pike's character, Amy, writes about them in her diary, which provides a running narration for the movie. They get pretty big. Scary big. And then she's gone, which you might suspect would happen given the title of the picture.
But what happened? Where did she go? Is she dead? Did her husband, Nick (Affleck), kill her? What's with him not knowing about her friends, her activities, her blood type, their money problems? Why does he sneak around with a second cell phone?
Cable news makes up its mind quickly. Nick did it. He's a sociopath who couldn't wait to get rid of her. He's the scum of the earth and there is nothing anyone can do to change the story. Case closed.
Cable news makes up its mind quickly. Nick did it. He's a sociopath who couldn't wait to get rid of her. He's the scum of the earth and there is nothing anyone can do to change the story. Case closed.
Then the rest of the movie happens. The audience is clued in to the truth, but Fincher, and novelist-screenwriter Gillian Flynn, are concerned with the way the conversation evolves via the media and the way media manipulates those who are exposed to it in any way, whether through direct consumption or dealing with people who do directly consume it. The longer the cable talking heads harp on the man in question, the easier it gets for the police – personified by the film as investigating officers Kim Dickens (Deadwood) and Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous) – to believe that version. The court of public opinion sways them despite some suspicious indications that maybe not all the facts are in.
And it's funny. It's meant to be. This is not the dour, obsessive, Fincher-by-numbers (Seven, Zodiac) the trailers make it out to be. Fincher and Flynn find each leaked piece of evidence to the press, and the ensuing grasping at narrative straws, to be hilarious. The culture's need to create a narrative, any narrative, is funny to them. Anyone portrayed on a television in this movie is looking to craft a particular story. Even when Nick does a one-on-one interview with a journalist who's out for blood, it's not about him telling his side of the story or trying to get out the truth. He's telling a carefully constructed narrative in order to reach a specific goal. This is not what he does in the “real world” scenes. In those, he's desperately attempting to make sense of a bizarre and unsettling situation while trying not to get caught for lesser misdeeds. But once those bright lights and TV cameras turn on, he's in control and on message, a suave devil. He's playing a role the media predestined for him. Everyone in this TV world has their own role, and each plays it without a hint of remorse for any mistakes made in pursuing those goals. It's all about that creation, that cultivation of story, and not about the truth, which is miles more fascinating.
But it's not just the media that overreacts and manipulates. It is the pair at the heart of story, too. Amy is upset about their move to small-town Missouri after both lost their jobs in New York during the recession, followed by Nick's mother getting sick. Nick manipulates Amy into the move and she “just wish[ed] he'd asked.” Things go south from there. Fights get worse, they stop communicating their thoughts and feelings with each other, and their relationship sours to the point of toxicity. But instead of being honest with themselves and each other, they don't divorce. Amy tries like crazy (key word) to shape and mold Nick, just as she had the previous men in her life, like Neil Patrick Harris's Desi, who is simultaneously eager to do the right thing and menacing nonetheless. Nick retreats into a haze of laziness and resentment, never caring for Amy's day-to-day life, or is she hiding that life from him? For all the talk about how hard they knew marriage would be, the simplest solutions stare them in their faces: either end it all and move on or actually tell each other what bothers them when it bothers them and avoid a festering issue of control and deceit.
And it's funny. It's meant to be. This is not the dour, obsessive, Fincher-by-numbers (Seven, Zodiac) the trailers make it out to be. Fincher and Flynn find each leaked piece of evidence to the press, and the ensuing grasping at narrative straws, to be hilarious. The culture's need to create a narrative, any narrative, is funny to them. Anyone portrayed on a television in this movie is looking to craft a particular story. Even when Nick does a one-on-one interview with a journalist who's out for blood, it's not about him telling his side of the story or trying to get out the truth. He's telling a carefully constructed narrative in order to reach a specific goal. This is not what he does in the “real world” scenes. In those, he's desperately attempting to make sense of a bizarre and unsettling situation while trying not to get caught for lesser misdeeds. But once those bright lights and TV cameras turn on, he's in control and on message, a suave devil. He's playing a role the media predestined for him. Everyone in this TV world has their own role, and each plays it without a hint of remorse for any mistakes made in pursuing those goals. It's all about that creation, that cultivation of story, and not about the truth, which is miles more fascinating.
But it's not just the media that overreacts and manipulates. It is the pair at the heart of story, too. Amy is upset about their move to small-town Missouri after both lost their jobs in New York during the recession, followed by Nick's mother getting sick. Nick manipulates Amy into the move and she “just wish[ed] he'd asked.” Things go south from there. Fights get worse, they stop communicating their thoughts and feelings with each other, and their relationship sours to the point of toxicity. But instead of being honest with themselves and each other, they don't divorce. Amy tries like crazy (key word) to shape and mold Nick, just as she had the previous men in her life, like Neil Patrick Harris's Desi, who is simultaneously eager to do the right thing and menacing nonetheless. Nick retreats into a haze of laziness and resentment, never caring for Amy's day-to-day life, or is she hiding that life from him? For all the talk about how hard they knew marriage would be, the simplest solutions stare them in their faces: either end it all and move on or actually tell each other what bothers them when it bothers them and avoid a festering issue of control and deceit.
But no, Amy and Nick let (force?) disaster, and a media circus, strike before going in the healthiest, safest, most efficient direction.
If you think that doesn't make Gone Girl one of the most dynamic, essential discussions of modern American culture, go improve on it. I'd love to have more great movies to see.
If you think that doesn't make Gone Girl one of the most dynamic, essential discussions of modern American culture, go improve on it. I'd love to have more great movies to see.
Some Movies Out This Weekend: October 3, 2014
This weekend seems to mark the true beginning of Fall Film Season, with some prestige-y stuff from Oscar-nominated filmmakers. There's also one big one that brings to mind my mistakes of pop culture past and the first Halloween-related movie this month. This isn't everything that's coming out, but the two wide releases are at least included, plus a couple other counter-programming options.
Opening this week, October 3, 2014.
Annabelle
Director: John R. Leonetti
Writer: Gary Dauberman
Starring: Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton, Tony Amendola
October is also horror movie month, and the big scary release this weekend is about a creepy doll that is possessed and tries to kill a young family. It sounds like Child's Play on paper, but the atmosphere of the trailer suggests something darker and more traditionally horrifying than just a bunch of jump scares. It certainly has those, too, but the ideas of dark spirits and the darkness hiding inside people and objects is frightening indeed. Director John R. Leonetti comes from the cinematography world, with credits including highly regarded recent horrors The Conjuring and the Insidious series. That's a good sign for anyone looking for a horror movie that understands the visual aspects of the medium.
Left Behind
Director: Vic Armstrong
Writers: Paul Lalonde, John Patus
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Lea Thompson, Chad Michael Murray
The apocalyptic book series-slash-thrift store staple – seriously, if you go to 100 thrift stores, approximately 94 of them will have at least three dogeared copies of each volume – comes to theaters in a reboot of the Kirk Cameron-starring 2000 direct-to-DVD adaptation. This time, though, it stars people you might recognize a little more, like Nicolas Cage, the mom from Back to the Future, and the guy from One Tree Hill who looks like my friend Peter.
I've actually read a few of these books, my interest spurred by a Time article I read about the series in my eighth grade homeroom. I figured, “Hey, a dramatization of the wacky stuff late in the Bible sounds like a good story to me.” I was wrong.
Very little about the books stick in my brain. One is the antichrist's all-time great name, Nicolae Carpathia, whose background served as the basis for a satirical article I wrote for my college literary magazine about then-candidate Barack Obama's 2008 run, an article I regretted when I realized people around the country actually believed he was a foreign-born harbinger of the end times. Oops. The other thing is one of the primary reasons that protagonist Rayford Steele – man, they all have amazing names – didn't get chosen to join the Rapture because he had thought about committing adultery. He didn't go through with it but was tempted. That's some insane person logic that completely misses the point of free will, choice, and doing the right thing.
Very little about the books stick in my brain. One is the antichrist's all-time great name, Nicolae Carpathia, whose background served as the basis for a satirical article I wrote for my college literary magazine about then-candidate Barack Obama's 2008 run, an article I regretted when I realized people around the country actually believed he was a foreign-born harbinger of the end times. Oops. The other thing is one of the primary reasons that protagonist Rayford Steele – man, they all have amazing names – didn't get chosen to join the Rapture because he had thought about committing adultery. He didn't go through with it but was tempted. That's some insane person logic that completely misses the point of free will, choice, and doing the right thing.
But whatever, go see it if you want. Based on the trailer, it looks like it drops the second two-thirds of the book – including everything about the antichrist – in favor of the action-packed stuff about people disappearing from the planet. Toss some Bible flavoring in and it could be a halfway interesting angle.
Gone Girl
Director: David Fincher
Writer: Gillian Flynn
Starring: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry
David Fincher is perhaps the strongest pure technician working in Hollywood today. His impeccably precise films have stretched the limits of their stars' patience – dozens of takes will do that to a person – but resulted in some uncompromising statements about obsession and the evils people (mostly men) do. Now, directing novelist Gillian Flynn's bestseller Gone Girl (Flynn adapted her book for the screenplay), he seems headed down the same path.
I'm a longtime Fincher fan, dating back to my time as, like every other middle class white guy of my generation, a gigantic fan of Fight Club while in high school. I've moved on from that fandom a bit, but movies like The Social Network and his masterpiece, Zodiac, have really done it for me. What concerns me a little about Gone Girl is that it seems to be walking the same path of “look at how horrible humanity can be” that Zodiac and his previous film, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo(disclaimer: that's one of two Fincher movies I haven't seen, but I've read a fair amount of criticism on both the book and movie to at least grasp the plot and themes) did. I don't want him to spin his wheels.
That said, this is a movie that's getting a lot of good notices. Todd VanDerWerff at Vox calls it “one of the bestmovies ever made about marriage” and the A.V. Club's IgnatiyVishnevetsky says it's surprisingly funny, so there must be something else going on. This is the one film this weekend I'll be reviewing for sure, so check back.
Men, Women & Children
That said, this is a movie that's getting a lot of good notices. Todd VanDerWerff at Vox calls it “one of the bestmovies ever made about marriage” and the A.V. Club's IgnatiyVishnevetsky says it's surprisingly funny, so there must be something else going on. This is the one film this weekend I'll be reviewing for sure, so check back.
Men, Women & Children
Director: Jason Reitman
Writers: Jason Reitman, Erin Cressida Wilson
Starring: Adam Sandler, Jennifer Garner, Rosemarie DeWitt, Judy Greer
Jason Reitman makes handsome, alternatively funny and sad movies about damaged, quirky people. Men, Women & Children seems to go the same direction of his sadder stuff, like Up in the Air, than his funnier work on, say, Thank You for Smoking and Juno.
Here are the things I can tell you about it. It involves the internet. Adam Sandler looks sad, so there's hope of a return to Punch Drunk Love-level goodness from him. People hurt each other and talk behind each other's backs.
Whether that's good, I don't know. I like Reitman, so I'll get to it soon.
Whether that's good, I don't know. I like Reitman, so I'll get to it soon.
