Gone Girl (film)

Movie
German title	Gone Girl - The perfect victim
Original title	Gone girl
Country of production	United States
original language	English
Publishing year	2014
length	149 minutes
Age rating	FSK 16 ; JMK 16
Rod
Director	David Fincher
script	Gillian Flynn
production	Ceán Chaffin ; Joshua Donen , ; Arnon Milchan , ; Reese Witherspoon
music	Trent Reznor , ; Atticus Ross
camera	Jeff Cronenweth
cut	Kirk Baxter
occupation
	Ben Affleck : Nick Dunne; Rosamund Pike : Amy Elliott Dunne; Neil Patrick Harris : Desi Collings; Missi Pyle : Ellen Abbott; Tyler Perry : Tanner Bolt; Kim Dickens : Detective Rhonda Boney; Patrick Fugit : Detective Jim Gilpin; Emily Ratajkowski : Andie Fitzgerald; Casey Wilson : Noelle Hawthorne; Kathleen Rose Perkins : Shawna Kelly; Lisa Banes : Marybeth Elliott; David Clennon : Rand Elliott; Boyd Holbrook : Jeff; Carrie Coon : Margo Dunne; Leonard Kelly-Young : Bill Dunne; Jamie McShane : Donnelly; Lola Kirke : Greta; Ricky Wood : Jason; Scoot McNairy : Tommy O'Hara; Sela Ward : Sharon Schieber;

Gone Girl is a 2014 American crime drama directed by David Fincher and based on the novel by Gillian Flynn , which also wrote the screenplay. According to the author, the plot does not completely match the plot of the novel. The theatrical release in Germany was on October 2, 2014. The film was shot in Los Angeles and Cape Girardeau , Missouri .

action

Nick and Amy Dunne seem to be a perfect marriage on the outside. Amy holds multiple awards from elite universities; her parents once successfully marketed her as the child prodigy and children's book character "Amazing Amy". Initially successful journalists in New York, Nick and Amy became unemployed due to the print media crisis and moved to Nick's home, the small town of North Carthage, Missouri, to help Nick's twin sister Margo care for their cancer-stricken mother. After her death, Nick runs a small bar in town with Margo; Amy is now a childless housewife.

On the fifth wedding anniversary, Amy disappears without a trace. When the police investigate Detective Rhonda Boney, it initially looks like a kidnapping, and both Nick and Amy's parents call for the search for Amy. During the investigation, however, Nick comes under increasing suspicion, which is reinforced by the discovery of his affair with student Andie Fitzgerald and the discovery of Amy's diary. Investigators also find credit card debt, which Nick apparently used to finance expensive hobbies while increasing Amy's life insurance. After all, both the police and the media assume a murder committed by Nick. Due to Amy's previous notoriety, the case has received a lot of media attention. The TV presenter Ellen Abbott stirs up an aggressive smear campaign against Nick.

Meanwhile, Nick finds out that Amy faked her own murder point by point to make him stand out as a murderer because she was extremely angry with him because of his affair and the slowly breaking up marriage. The deeply offended woman, who was looking for revenge, wrote false diary entries about her husband's allegedly violent disposition, staged an increase in her life insurance and covered her credit card with his name. She faked a pregnancy and drew blood for traces at the “crime scene”. Margo takes up the fight against Amy's deceptions together with Nick and the star lawyer Tanner Bolt in order to save him from the impending death sentence. Nick finds a former friend of Amy's, Tommy O'Hara, whom she got convicted of sexual assault many years ago with also staged circumstantial evidence.

Meanwhile, Amy is driving a secretly bought car. With tips to Nick and the police, she steers the investigation in the desired direction. She initially plans to drown herself, but then decides to start a new life. In a motel, she is robbed of all of her money by a young couple who befriended her. She has no choice but to seek help from her ex-boyfriend Desi Collings. He then takes her to his luxurious lake house and tries to get closer to her again. Meanwhile, in a television interview with Sharon Schieber, Nick Dunne convinces the public of his innocence by feigning love for Amy and emphasizing that Amy must be found. Impressed by Nick's love oaths on TV, she plans Desi's death so she can return to Nick. She added false traces of rape and bondage, added the “kidnapping” to Desi and protested that she acted in self-defense when she cut his throat with a box knife. Nick makes it clear to her that he will leave her immediately as soon as press interest has flattened. When Amy gets pregnant with Nick's frozen sperm and Nick knows what she is capable of, to the horror of his sister Margo, he sees no other option than to maintain the appearance of a happy marriage and to protect his future child .

background

Shortly after the novel was published in 2012, it was announced that Reese Witherspoon would be producing the film with her company Pacific Standard. The novel by the until then little known author Gillian Flynn quickly developed into a surprise success. Reese Witherspoon was talking to numerous colleagues such as Natalie Portman , Charlize Theron and Emily Blunt to take on the lead role of Amy Dunne. In the end, however, they decided on Rosamund Pike . Filming began on September 11, 2013 in Cape Girardeau, Missouri .

In the United States, the film grossed $ 38 million on its opening weekend. By mid-February 2015, revenue was just under $ 368 million, of which $ 167 million came from the United States. In Germany, 215,000 moviegoers saw the film on the opening weekend.

reception

criticism

Gone Girl - The perfect victim was received largely positively. The film received 8.1 stars out of 10 in the Internet Movie Database .

David Steinitz of the Süddeutsche Zeitung sums it up: "[Fincher] turns his thriller into a nasty horror trip about the depths of a modern couple relationship, in which it is no longer about pointing blame, but about who is the more capable sociopath in everyday life." is a "brilliant thriller".

Kino.de sees it similarly: "David Fincher [...] shows himself again as a master of his trade: Few can stage so grippingly that you forget everything around you because of the tension." In addition, the "terrific acting performances [...] Ben Afflecks and Rosamunde [sic] Pikes ”.

Moviepilot.de, on the other hand, sees the director's weakest film together with Panic Room . The story is "not particularly remarkable" and it is neither imaginatively staged, nor extremely gripping, nor does it contain iconic images. After a short time, there was little interest in the involvement of the actors.

Empire editor Ian Freer says: “Stylish, daring and full of twists, 'Gone Girl' is a date movie à la David Fincher: dark, smart and dangerous. Even if the finale doesn't deliver what was previously promised, the twists, surprises and consistent portrayal of moral depravity can make you dizzy. ”He awards 4 out of 5 stars.

In its review, Die Zeit particularly praised Ben Affleck's acting skills, who, in his role as an unfaithful husband, murder suspect and, ultimately, victim of a hysterical media mob, was “the big hit” in the cast. The "brazen, slightly underexposed, American mediocrity" that he expressed was "never [...] more fascinating to examine". David Fincher's successful, luxurious staging is also highlighted, who refines the prose of the book with “well-dosed actors” who “embody their characters [...] just seriously enough not to force their self-disassembly too obviously”.

Similarly, in its film review , the Spiegel highlights the directorial performance of Fincher, who creates "great cinema" with his film, in which "irony and cruelty, tenderness and terror are brilliantly set in relation", as one "has never seen it before in the cinema" have. Affleck remains the “decal of a beer-drinking testosterone man”, but in this way leaves room for Rosamund Pike's play, who perfectly masters every pitch “between tragically despondent hipster and happily aggressive manipulator”.

The world sees in its criticism in Fincher's dramaturgically lean film adaptation of the novel "a journey straight into the heart of the darkness of human coexistence", which moves in the footsteps of Hitchcock's suspicions . Fincher dissects marriage with clinical precision and balances "the fine line between happiness and misery"; the beautiful appearance that is maintained to the outside world is shown with “absurd consistency”. With cynical clarity, Fincher shows that you will “never know the whole truth” about your significant other, to whom you can supposedly entrust everything, and that you should “better not know”. Fincher created such a film that Alfred Hitchcock and Ingmar Bergman could have made together. However, the treatment of the novel's subject is criticized, which remains “largely unclear”, since Gone Girl transforms itself several times, “from a murder thriller into a fantasy of revenge and finally to the Grand Guignol puppet theater”.