It’s been a while since there has been a book loved and hated in equal measure quite like Gone Girl. Gillian Flynn’s explosive novel took a close look at a marriage on the edge as wife Amy vanishes, leaving everyone to suspect that husband Nick might be behind her disappearance. Yet, as the story progresses, it seems there is far more to the disappearance than previously thought.
Flynn’s novel is slow to start, then becomes utterly engrossing by the middle and by the end is sure to leave many readers wide-eyed and stunned as twist after twist is designed to take them on a shocking journey. Just when you think you have it figured out, there’s a new angle to consider.
Gone Girl’s greatest strength is the way in which it examines our current social media-driven world – a world in which people feel vehemently that they know who the guilty party may be in any high-profile case, simply because they might not like the look of the accused. Perhaps they didn’t react how they were ‘supposed to’ in a press conference. They don’t look sad enough. Or perhaps they look too sad – it’s clearly just for the camera. Flynn may be writing fiction but there’s a lot of truth in the way people are so quick to be judge and jury.
Flynn’s book is incredibly daring, simply because she doesn’t believe in neat and tidy resolutions. She goes in whichever direction she likes and the book is all the stronger for it. Her characters are not clear-cut; they are messy, just like the marriage in question. There are moments of pure farce where you may find yourself screaming that there’s no way they would behave in that manner – but again, this is the beauty of it. It can be so very real that Flynn seems to enjoy reminding her readers that this is, in fact, fiction.
The main issue with the book is that it is just too choppy. The opening section of the story builds at a practically glacial pace and is so narrative-heavy it’s hard to keep interested. Even the disappearance itself isn’t all that dramatic. You just have to keep on going until the second section begins. That’s when it really gets interesting!
The main contention many readers had with Gone Girl was the ending which – without giving it away – was all too much of a shock. Readers clearly saw the book going off in one direction and then at the last moment found themselves making a u-turn. Though, it has to be said, there is a rather clever element hidden between the lines that could just mean another direction entirely. That’s the beauty of it. You can make of it what you like.
The film of GONE GIRL seems to not be nearly as divisive as the book, with critics across the board awarding it the full 5*. There is award talk for Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck (Amy and Nick) and it’s easy to see why. The pair of them play the many sides to their respective roles with a great combination of dark humour and all-out horror. It’s hard to know who to trust and who to believe and as the story develops, so do they.
The greatest strength of the film is that the laborious sections of the book are trimmed and what remains is the characters themselves and the reactions of the masses – the two main elements of the book which make the story so enjoyable.
This really is a winning team. As well as the flawless casting of Affleck and Pike, there is the director and writer to consider – and the pair are almost as evident in each scene as the lead actors. Thanks to David Fincher’s stunning direction, the film manages to be a little less ridiculous than the book. It’s wrought with tension and the hint of dark humour never turns the film into something to be laughed at. Gillian Flynn also shows an impressive understand of story-telling across two very different mediums and has done an astonishingly good job of adapting her own work for the big screen. Her much-debated ending – which was rumoured to be different in the film to the book – is shorter but not all that different. The epilogue from the book is left off and the resulting closing words of the film are skin-tinglingly good.
GONE GIRL is a deliciously devilish film that certainly warrants its 18 certificate here in the UK thanks to some intense and shocking violence – one scene in particular – and psychological game-playing. The book and film have slightly different tones but ultimately they are both just as impressive, just as twisted and just as delightfully dark as each other.
It has to be a tie-break!
Book: [usr=4]
Film: [usr=4]
GONE GIRL is out now.
