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Plonking this old review here
Nov. 15th, 2014 08:00 pmGone Girl:
The movie and the book are notorious for featuring a big "bait and switch" plot twist. My date and I both agreed that the film's biggest "bait and switch" was a different one, perpetrated on the couple in the film:
They airily proclaimed to each other that they would not be "one of those couples", yet they consistently acted with passive-aggressive ironic detachment, from the first seconds of their meeting all the way to the last frame of the film. Anyone who's been in a relationship longer than a fortnight is usually wise enough to know that such behavior is dysfunctional and makes a terrible foundation for commitment. Hollywood scripts gotta have tension, but it's bad news if the tension I feel is toward the writers.
Overall, I enjoyed it. My favorite part of the movie was when the wife made a dramatic statement about driving to the Gulf of Mexico to throw herself to the Great White sharks, and her supposedly trailer trash acquaintance quietly corrected her with something like "no, the Gulf of Mexico is Bull Sharks, honey". That single muttered line nicely exposed the wife's inflated ego and simultaneously set the stage for her humiliation in their next scene.
...And I think that next scene is crucial, possibly the turning point of the entire film. It seemed to change the whole thesis to something like: People who are experts at manipulating image can be almost pathetically vulnerable to people who don't care about image, and are happy to strike lower.
Also, I know the book is popular for a monologue about being a "cool girl", and how that basically means struggling to fit an impossible and contradictory standard for the sake of pleasing men, but was I supposed to notice that the wife in the movie never appears to do anything on that list? E.g. drink beer with the guys and be sexually devoted? Is she delivering the monologue for ironic purposes, then? While idly making sandwiches on her $300 panini press, in her massive, immaculate kitchen? Something got lost in translation I think.
The movie and the book are notorious for featuring a big "bait and switch" plot twist. My date and I both agreed that the film's biggest "bait and switch" was a different one, perpetrated on the couple in the film:
They airily proclaimed to each other that they would not be "one of those couples", yet they consistently acted with passive-aggressive ironic detachment, from the first seconds of their meeting all the way to the last frame of the film. Anyone who's been in a relationship longer than a fortnight is usually wise enough to know that such behavior is dysfunctional and makes a terrible foundation for commitment. Hollywood scripts gotta have tension, but it's bad news if the tension I feel is toward the writers.
Overall, I enjoyed it. My favorite part of the movie was when the wife made a dramatic statement about driving to the Gulf of Mexico to throw herself to the Great White sharks, and her supposedly trailer trash acquaintance quietly corrected her with something like "no, the Gulf of Mexico is Bull Sharks, honey". That single muttered line nicely exposed the wife's inflated ego and simultaneously set the stage for her humiliation in their next scene.
...And I think that next scene is crucial, possibly the turning point of the entire film. It seemed to change the whole thesis to something like: People who are experts at manipulating image can be almost pathetically vulnerable to people who don't care about image, and are happy to strike lower.
Also, I know the book is popular for a monologue about being a "cool girl", and how that basically means struggling to fit an impossible and contradictory standard for the sake of pleasing men, but was I supposed to notice that the wife in the movie never appears to do anything on that list? E.g. drink beer with the guys and be sexually devoted? Is she delivering the monologue for ironic purposes, then? While idly making sandwiches on her $300 panini press, in her massive, immaculate kitchen? Something got lost in translation I think.
