For Better or For Much, Much Worse

Movies: Gone Girl

"I'm the cunt you married. The only time you liked yourself was when you were trying to be someone this cunt might like. I'm not a quitter... I'm that cunt."


 Spoilers in this review

If you like your movies mean and raw, you'll feel as though you've hit the jackpot with David Fincher's latest cinematic masterpiece. Based on Gillian Flynn's best-selling, genre-defying novel, Gone Girl is half whodunit procedural and half cynical portrait of a marriage gone terribly wrong.

Gone Girl is expertly cast. Ben Affleck was born to play Nick Dunne--an attractive charmer who is also a douchey cheat of a husband. Rosamund Pike is a cipher as Amy Dunne, Nick's wife. There are different interpretations of Amy, but I considered her to be a sociopath, plain and simple. The inability to empathize and the drive to use other people for whatever her needs are at the moment.

The secondary characters are very strong. Kim Dickens has a plum role as Det. Rhonda Boney, a cop who is on Nick's side at first, but slowly loses faith in him as more "evidence" that he killed his wife mounts up. Tyler Perry works his slick charm as lawyer Tanner Bolt, notorious for defending "wife killers". Neil Patrick Harris plays Desi Collings, Amy's obsessive ex from high school--a spoiled rich boy who "rescues" Amy in her moment of need, only to trap her in a gilded cage of a luxury lakehouse. Things do not end well for Desi, as Amy is not the kind of girl you lock up.

                                                       Image courtesy of variety.com

 Like so many other films by Fincher, Gone Girl is beautifully shot in cool tones (with the occasional blast of dark red blood) and tightly paced. Fincher isn't afraid to let his movies run long: Gone Girl clocks in at 149 minutes, which is modest compared to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's 158 minutes and Zodiac's 157 minutes. Yet you never feel that his films drag. He doesn't waste precious minutes, using quick cuts and fades to jump back and forth in time. We see flashbacks of Amy and Nick's sex-fueled and seemingly happy courtship alongside Nick's descent into guilty husband hell as the court of public opinion turns on him. We see Nick coming to horrific realizations as he solves his wife's 5-year anniversary treasure hunt while, not too far away, Det. Boney and Det. Gilpin (Patrick Fugit from Almost Famous, all grown up!) discover the final piece of evidence that damns Nick as the killer. The film moves quickly, but is not convoluted (or maybe that's because I read the book and knew every twist that was coming).

But enough about the technical aspects of the film. Let's address the burning questions about Gone Girl:

Is the movie (and the book) misogynistic?

Well, that all depends on your perspective. On the one hand, Gone Girl plays out like the wet dream of a Men's Rights Activist: it involves a bitchy, controlling woman who lies about rape and abuse in order to control and nearly destroy her husband. Ben Affleck utters a line near the beginning: "I'm so sick of being picked on by women." At the moment he says it, it comes off as the pathetic cry of a white, attractive man who didn't get *everything* he wanted. But as it becomes clearer what kind of woman he's married to, well, you actually start to feel bad for the guy. I mean, he's a run of the mill cheating husband and jerk, but he's married to a highly intelligent nutcase who uses her brains and body for evil. And that trope of the femme fatale is both sexist and (yawn) played out.

And yet...

There's something about this story (it's more blatant in the book, but you hear it loud and clear in Amy's monologue about "the Cool Girl") that gets to the heart of a real problem women face--the pressure to identify themselves in relation to men. Amy Elliott Dunne may be a sociopath, but she most certainly does not let men define her. Or does she? Has she been the "Cool Girl" all along, only to throw off those shackles in the most dramatic and vengeful way possible? Is Gone Girl a warning to a male-dominated society that you can push a woman only so far before she pushes back?

Gone Girl is not a "feminist" film--unless your idea of feminism is a woman cutting a man's throat while he's in the throes of orgasm (which I'm sure is some people's idea of feminism!). But it can only be considered "misogynistic" when compared to the lack of more traditionally heroic roles for women in Hollywood cinema. If we had a much greater diversity of complex, interesting roles for women, Gone Girl's Amy Dunne would just be one of many options for how a female character can be. Also, isn't it kinda nice having a really nasty female anti-hero? We have so many Walter Whites and Don Drapers and Tony Sopranos. Why not have a female character who fuck and kill with the best of the boys?

Is the movie (and book) anti-marriage?

No. It's anti-marriage to psychopaths. While the movie is extremely cynical in regards to Amy and Nick's marriage, anyone who has an iota of respect and love for their partner will not be threatened by this film. More likely, they'll be relieved.


What else is this movie about?

Gone Girl less about women, men, and marriage and more about how the 24 hour news cycle manipulates people's emotions when it comes to current events. It's a film about how readily and easily people buy into stereotypes: the cheating louche of a husband, the pregnant, scared wife...and perhaps most damning of all: the idea that a white, beautiful woman going missing is more important than, say, ebola killing thousands of Africans or a tsunami leveling a city whose name we can't pronounce. Maybe Gillian Flynn is not only a mastermind at creating a tight, tense thriller...but at redirecting our attention to a fictional monster while subtly pointing out that we are the real monsters. Or did I just blow your mind??


Should I see this movie?

Yes. As long as you are ok with hearing a guy call his wife a cunt and seeing that wife murder a man (in the throes of orgasm!). I would not recommend this film for the squeamish, for people who hate women (if you hate women, I recommend these movies instead), or for any romantic couples on the cusp of a breakup. Otherwise, you're in for a nasty, acidic little treat that you'll be thinking about days later.

4.5 out of 5 stars

Entertainment Dump

Here is the Reader's Digest Condensed version of a bunch of movies, shows, and books that I've been meaning to review.


The Hudsucker Proxy

One of Joel and Ethan Coen's lesser known films, The Hudsucker Proxy is in a similar vein as O Brother, Where Art Thou? with its peculiar brand of absurd humor and magical realism. Tim Robbins, rocking a modest pompadour, plays a rube named Norville Barnes who gets hired to be the president of Hudsucker Industries after the owner of the company commits suicide. The scheme is to get investors to lose faith in the company so that the board of directors can buy up stocks for pennies on the dollar. But when Norville invents an "extruded plastic dingus"--you know, for kids--an item that becomes a wildly popular bestseller, the board of directors realize that their scheme might not pay off.


Co-starring Paul Newman as the oily Sidney Mussberger and Jennifer Jason Leigh as a fast-talking journalist, The Hudsucker Proxy is not the among the best of the Coen bros. films, but it's a solid little gem.

3.75 out of 5 stars

***

Jug Face

A strange indie horror film, Jug Face is about a group of families living out in the sticks who follow a cultish religion where they regularly sacrifice members of their group to a creature that lives in a pit. Young Ada finds out that she is the next sacrifice chosen for the pit and refuses to accept her destiny, causing havoc to those around her. There's also incest. Yay.

Jug Face is entertaining, but ultimately not very good or very scary (the special effects that reveal the thing in the pit are amateurish). The movie is more concerned with making fun of weird, provincial hillbillies than with building a creative and tense storyline.

3 out of 5 stars

***

Devil's Pass

Another indie horror movie with iffy special effects, Devil's Pass has the advantage of actually being scary. Filmed in "Blair Witch" style, with handheld cameras, the film follows a group of college students setting out to make a documentary about the events of the Dyatlov Pass Incident--a real-life mystery where a group of hikers all died under mysterious conditions in the Ural Mountains in 1959.

 Devil's Pass uses the facts of the actual incident to build tension that leads to an over-the-top climax involving a government cover up. The climax itself isn't as scary as the events leading up to it, in which the college students find themselves in increasingly dire straits as they retrace the steps of the Dyatlov hiking group. A worthwhile Netflix streaming watch.

3.5 out of 5 stars

***

True Detective

I had a couple beefs with this admittedly addictive HBO series, the main one being that women are treated like sub-human annoyances and sex dolls throughout all 8 episodes. Granted, the show looks down on the sexist and hypocritical way Det. Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson) treats his wife, daughter, and mistresses, but it also doesn't really put its money where its mouth is by giving us a few strong, complex female characters. We get Hart's long-suffering wife, Maggie (Michelle Monaghan), and that's basically it. The way the show is written is misogynistic at worst and just plain male-centered at best.

HOWEVER. Stupid sexist bullshit aside, True Detective is, in fact, a well-written, extremely well-acted (especially Matthew McConaughey's portrayal of nihilistic weirdo Det. Rust Cohle), tightly-paced, creepy, addictive series. I can't deny that it's good watchin'. If you don't know the plot, I'll give it to you in one sentence: Cohle and Hart work together (despite massive personality differences) to solve the murder of a young woman whose death may have been part of a satanic ritual. Intrigued yet? Although I felt that there were certain threads to the mystery that were never fully addressed, the overarching themes of redemption, faith, and friendship give this series some meat. Let's hope women play a more central role next season.

4.5 out of 5 stars

***

The Disaster Artist

Those who know me know I'm a big fan of The Room--a laughably awful movie written, directed, produced, and starring professional weirdo Tommy Wiseau. The Room, unlike many other films that are simply bad, has a certain je ne sais quoi which elevates it to an almost artistic level of wrongness. The mystery of Wiseau--where he came from, what his motivations are--adds an additional element of strangeness to an already bizarre movie. So when The Disaster Artist, a memoir/tell-all by Greg "Sestosterone" Sestero (co-written by Tom Bissell), came out, I knew I had to snatch it up. And snatch I did.

Sestero interweaves his experience working on The Room (he served as line producer and also played Mark, the plum role of Johnny's (Wiseau) "best friend" who betrays Johnny by sleeping with his fiance) with the story of his own struggle to make it as an actor and how he met and befriended Wiseau. Sestero reveals tantalizing details from the set of The Room (the scene where Johnny exclaims "I deed naht heet her. Ees bullsheet. I deed NAHT. Oh, hai Mark" took about 4 hours to film) and even more tantalizing details about what might possibly be Wiseau's backstory. The book ends at The Room's premiere, which is a bit of shame since I would have liked to learn more about how The Room went from a shitty movie to a cult phenomenon. Sestero tries pretty hard to be even-handed in his description of Wiseau, but one wonders why he--and anyone else--put up with a man who has all the qualities of a delusional megalomaniac. Maybe because Wiseau had an inexplicably gigantic bank account? Probably.

The Disaster Artist isn't so much a tell-all as a tell-most. And Sestero's constant teetering between attempting to paint Wiseau as a latter-day Ed Wood and outright making fun of him comes off as disingenuous and condescending. However, the book is such great fun, with laugh-out-loud moments, that it's well worth reading for fans of The Room.

4 out of 5 stars

***

Bittersweet

I had heard a lot about Miranda Beverly-Whittemore's novel Bittersweet before I swiped it for $2 on Amazon. The story is about an average girl, Mabel, who gets sucked into the world of her very, very wealthy college roommate, Ev Winslow. After Mabel comforts icy Ev when her cousin commits suicide, Ev invites Mabel to spend the summer with her extended family at their estate in Vermont. "Bittersweet" refers to the name of the cottage Ev's parents give her when she turns 18. The Winslow estate is a chunk of land where each family member has their own cottage. Every summer, the entire damn place is overrun by privileged WASPs with mounds of juicy secrets. Sounds like a great read, huh? In truth, Bittersweet is good, but it just doesn't pay off. Mabel is encouraged by one of the older Winslows to go through family documents to find a mysterious manilla envelope proving ownership of a certain Van Gogh painting hanging in the dining hall. But that's just a red herring for the *real* Winslow scandals, which are much darker and much more overwrought. Think to yourself--what would be the most scandalous family secret for a gaggle of wealthy, upper-crust yankees? Whatever your answer is, it's probably one of the myriad family secrets that plague the Winslows in Bittersweet. The 400-page novel slowly, teasingly builds up to an overstuffed climax in which Beverly-Whittemore attempts to reveal all the Winslow secrets and tie up loose ends in about 20 pages. It's a shame since the novel is otherwise well written and decently paced. It's as if the author couldn't commit to one mystery or family secret and decided to just throw everything into a pot.

3 out of 5 stars