Gone Girl

Director David Fincher and an impressive cast have little luck in giving any genuinely dramatic depth to writer Gillian Flynn’s narrative concoction. The central figures in the tale are a mildly klutzy hunk named Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) and his perfectly groomed blonde wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike). The film begins with Nick puzzling over the mysteries of his wife’s character, then moves quickly into its pivotal plot strand—Amy’s sudden, mysterious, and increasingly alarming disappearance. But Gone Girl is only partly a mystery story. Soon enough, it diversifies its dramatic potential via an assortment of secondary characters, each of whom has significant connections with one or both of the Dunnes. And in a way, it becomes more of a psychological horror story in its prolonged second half. The film also runs aground on its own key points. The characters’ susceptibility to illusion and delusion seems tailor-made for a Fincher movie, but Nick and Amy are obvious phonies right from the start, and the film never is able to make their story matter much. Cinemark 14 and Feather River Cinemas. Rated R