Gone Girl Film Plays Differently To The Book's Readers/Non-Readers
Your experience watching Gone Girl may be swayed pretty heavily by whether or not you read the book before seeing it.
I saw Gone Girl with someone who hadn’t read the book, while I had. While we had similar takes on the performances, our overall impressions of the film's execution were fairly different. He was pretty absorbed the whole time, and once it got to that big plot twist in the middle where (SPOILER ALERT) we find out the girl (Amy) isn’t really dead, but is framing her husband, he was even more into it. Still, he wasn’t impressed to the point that he was demanding anyone receive an Oscar.
Meanwhile, my internal monologue as I watched had gone like this:
1. The love story part of this is really cute.
2. Usually Ben Affleck (Nick) is really boring but they say he has been a better actor lately, so maybe he’ll pull a McConaughey.
3. I guess it’s convenient that he’s playing someone who is supposed to be emotionless.
4. Okay, they’re reeeeally going long with the set up here.
5. Ohmygodlet’sgettothegoodpartIamsobored
6. YES PLOT TWIST THANK YOU
7. Rosamund Pike is pretty creepy but I’m not sure where all these nominations are coming from. Where was Kate Winslet this year?
Still, the second half of the film was pretty captivating, mostly thanks to Rosamund Pike (Amy), who played a truly shiver-inducing sociopath. Affleck was fairly well suited to play her husband, and both Tyler Perry and Neil Patrick Harris were on their games as his lawyer and Amy's not-so-benevolent captor, respectively. I wish more time had been devoted to the lady cop, however, who was one of the most interesting characters in the book.
If you haven’t read the book, chances are you’ll enjoy the film more than those of us who have. The long set up in the first half of the film is really what makes the twist in the second half so juicy and creepy. If you have read the book, however, you might get bored because when you already know what happens that set up gets pretty drawn out.
And now for my two cents on Affleck as Batman, because I have to:
(image source: mashable.com)