Gone Girl - The Perfect Victim

In the beginning it was the great love between the aspiring writer Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) and the charming and beautiful Amy (Rosamund Pike). But after five years of marriage, all passion seems to be extinguished. Nick and Amy just bitch at each other and avoid spending time together. But is that enough of a reason to commit a crime. This question is asked not only by the police, but also by the entire media landscape when Amy disappears one day without a trace. Although at first everything looks like a kidnapping, the signs are mounting that Nick may have murdered his wife. The case becomes more and more a media spectacle and Nick becomes the most hated man in America. The secrets that come to light about him in the process don't help his claim of innocence. But is the truth really as clear as it seems?

With Gone Girl - The Perfect Victim, the film adaptation of the bestseller of the same name by Gillian Flynn, director David Fincher once again turns to the thriller genre. So of course it's inevitable that his latest work will be compared to his earlier works such as Seven, Zodiac or, of course, Fight Club. And then one is quickly tempted to dismiss Gone Girl as a comparatively conventional mass product. To be sure, Fincher's signature style is clearly evident in the visuals alone. Still, at first glance, his new film doesn't exactly stand out for its original and shocking twists. Even those who don't know the book will know what really happened to Amy after the first hour at the latest.

However, the whole thing works extremely well - even if you already know the novel. Because Gone Girl is just not only a quite suspenseful thriller, but also a rousing marital psychodrama, which offers first-class entertainment as a combination of Fincher's dense staging and the excellent play of the two main actors until the controversial end. Ben Affleck gets to prove once again here that, despite all the criticisms, he really can act. And Rosamund Pike embodies the various facets of her character so perfectly that an Oscar nomination would be more than justified here. For those who haven't read the book, not too much should be revealed here, of course. But this much can be said: the former Bond girl runs just then to the best form, when she does not play the charming woman, in which the audience just as Nick at the beginning only too gladly fall in love.

When it becomes clear whether Nick killed his Amy, or not, the story loses in no way in tension. For Fincher now manages perfectly to turn the whole thing into a bitterly vicious psychological drama, which he then spices up with a good dash of media satire. Accompanied by the atmospheric music of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, there is hardly any noticeable length in the almost two and a half hours. Regardless of whether you are enthusiastic about the story or not, there is no question that the film offers great cinema in terms of craftsmanship and acting. Only the finale, as was the case with the book, will rightly divide minds. Although there are minor changes, Fincher and Gillian Flynn, who also wrote the screenplay, have kept the actual ending of the book. And it's easy to be tempted to dismiss the finale as rushed, unimaginative and unsatisfying. But on reflection, even some doubters should realize that the story really couldn't have been given a more uncompromising and evil ending. And thus the film again fits quite perfectly into the oeuvre of David Fincher.

If you can be captivated by the story, then Gone Girl - The Perfect Victim is a truly outstanding psychological thriller and a bitterly wicked marriage drama that would be a deserving Oscar candidate in several categories at once. A great film, for which there is a very clear absolutely worth seeing and which one forgives even the cleverly-brashly woven surreptitious advertising for Netflix (the streaming service for which Fincher produces the series House of Cards) only too gladly.

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp