Gone Girl

A film built on a disappearance. Amy goes missing on their wedding anniversary. There is broken glass in the front room, a cleaned bloodstain in the kitchen, and her husband calls the police. Nick looks calm. He smiles in front of the cameras, his statements do not match, and he quickly becomes the only suspect. The narrative runs on two lines. On one side the present of the investigation; on the other the years of the marriage, read from Amy's diary. There is a break in the middle and after it the narrative becomes an entirely different film; what it is will not be written here. What the narrative is interested in is not murder but performance: the film is really about how the media builds a story and how a couple perform for each other. There is also class and money. A town after the crash, a closed shopping centre, lost jobs, and a couple who moved out of New York. Amy's speech about the cool girl is the most quoted part and comes from the hardest pages of the novel. The screenplay was written by the novelist, Gillian Flynn; there was public argument about the ending, and the film finally kept the book's. The music is by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and most of it is not melody but a low hum underneath. Rosamund Pike was nominated for an Academy Award for the part. Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Carrie Coon, Kim Dickens, Neil Patrick Harris and Tyler Perry are in the cast. David Fincher directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes cold, calculated thrillers. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a sympathetic character; nobody here can be trusted and that is deliberate.