Holy moly, has this been a year for books-turned-movies or what?
First, Divergent. Then, The Fault in Our Stars. Followed by If I Stay. Then, The Giver. Now, Gone Girl.
I know I missed a few (you can check out this list for more Books Turned Movies in 2014). There were some that I read the book but didn’t see the movie, like The Maze Runner. There are some movies that I didn’t even know where books, like This Is Where I Leave You. There are some that I didn’t read the book or plan on seeing the movie, like The Best of Me. (I don’t like Nicholas Sparks. I make no apology.)
Gone Girl, however, was the first novel that my book club read at its inception, and I couldn’t have been more excited about this movie.
A few things (because I think in lists):
1. Amy-freaking-Dunne. Words cannot describe the craziness that is Rosamund Pike playing Amy Dunne. The opening (and closing) shot of her smile haunted me in my dreams all night. I have never hated a character to such a crazy level, and I think the movie just took her character from the book and amplified it. Seriously. Best actress award to Rosamund Pike now.
2. Pretty true to the book. Granted, I haven’t read the novel since January 2012. That was on purpose. I’ve learned my lesson about rereading a novel too close to the movie and getting disappointed. But, from everything I remember, this movie did a wonderful job staying true-ish to the book. It probably helped that Gillian Flynn wrote the screenplay. Also, the ending.. well… readers of the book won’t be disappointed/will be very disappointed because the ending still ends in the most frustrating way possible.
3. The actors bare all. Seriously, there were quite a bit of boobies in this movie. Ben Affleck even goes a bit full frontal. I was surprised by the amount of sexual and naked scenes, although the nude scene when Amy is telling the truth to Nick in the shower.. I couldn’t shake that image from my mind. The director did a phenomenal job on this one.
4. A comment on marriage. So this one shook me to my core. Throughout the movie, it’s obvious that the director, producer, and Gillian Flynn were using Gone Girl to make a comment about marriage, albeit using psychopaths. Amy’s portrayal of her marriage from start to finish in her diary showed their marriage moving from the “perfect” marriage to an imperfect, unhealthy marriage, and made a statement about reasons why people might stay in unhealthy marriages. The final scene with Nick and Margo (I’ll try not to spoil it here for anyone who hasn’t read the novel) really commented on marriage and how we turn into different people, for better or worse, when we are with someone. I’m still processing everything that was presented in the movie, since this point of view was so much more amplified in the movie than in the book (or maybe I just caught on it more this time around).
Honestly, if you liked Gone Girl, you shouldn’t hesitate to see the movie. It was really tough to watch at some points (cue blood squirting everywhere for what felt like a million years and Amy being a crazy psycho), but it stayed true to the novel, was acted to perfection, and really set the mood and scene with a lot of depth and intrigue.
ALSO: If you haven’t seen the marketing promos for this movie, check out findamazingamy.com and Amy Dunne’s Pinterest account!
