She's gone
I decided to go to a movie yesterday afternoon but the movie I saw wasn't the one I had intended to see. I wanted to see Pride, a new British film about a group of gays that raised money for a small Welsh mining town during a strike in the 80s and I thought it started at 3:20. I got on the bus at 2:40 and figured I'd get there just in time. I checked my phone, the Cineplex app, and oh dear...The movie's start time was 3:10 and there's no way I would get there in time. The only other thing I thought I'd like to see was Gone Girl at 3:35 so that's what I did and I had enough Cineplex points to see it for free.
The basic story is that a wife goes missing on their wedding anniversary. Her husband is eventually accused of killing her though there's no body. The media is in a frenzy, and Nick, the husband, gets a hotshot lawyer to manages to use the media to win public opinion over to his side a bit. The wife, Amy, is not dead, she's framed her husband. We get flashbacks to their courtship and early marraige as narrated by Amy's diary. By the end of it you aren't altogether sure how much of it is real and how much she's made up. The early stuff seems to be what actually happened. You start to think the later stuff is made up but is it all? Amy is revealed to be a psychopath and Nick is revealed to be not nearly as nice and romantic as he pretended to be to woo her initially. By the end, she's back and she's definitely got the upper hand. They're together but at what cost?
I'd read the book by Gillian Flynn last year and enjoyed it. Neither of the lead characters are really all that nice though you get more of that from the book. The movie does do a very good job of bringing the essence of the book to the screen and doesn't mess around much with the story. That's probably because Gillian Flynn herself wrote the screenplay. The book goes further past the ending where the movie stopped and you get a much better idea of what their life together going forward will be like and you have no sympathy for either of them, feeling that they pretty much deserve each other. You don't quite get that from the movie though you don't feel Nick is as sympathetic as he has made out either. You don't need to read the book to get the movie, in fact, I had forgotten the detail at the end of the book anyway, though i knew the main ending and the gist of it.
I was also dubious about Ben Affleck as Nick Dunne but he was quite good. Rosamund Pike is a British actress but does American very well and she was great as Amy. Neil Patrick Harris played Amy's old boyfriend Desi Collings with just the right amount of creepy. For a book that's uber-popular, the book everyone's reading, those books don't often end up impressing me much by the time I read them and I almost never like the movies made from them. This was an exception on both counts. I liked the book, written from both Amy and Nick's point of view and the movie was cast well and held close to the book as well.
Thanksgiving feasting later today. Spending some time with one of my best friends tomorrow. Top weekend!
The basic story is that a wife goes missing on their wedding anniversary. Her husband is eventually accused of killing her though there's no body. The media is in a frenzy, and Nick, the husband, gets a hotshot lawyer to manages to use the media to win public opinion over to his side a bit. The wife, Amy, is not dead, she's framed her husband. We get flashbacks to their courtship and early marraige as narrated by Amy's diary. By the end of it you aren't altogether sure how much of it is real and how much she's made up. The early stuff seems to be what actually happened. You start to think the later stuff is made up but is it all? Amy is revealed to be a psychopath and Nick is revealed to be not nearly as nice and romantic as he pretended to be to woo her initially. By the end, she's back and she's definitely got the upper hand. They're together but at what cost?
I'd read the book by Gillian Flynn last year and enjoyed it. Neither of the lead characters are really all that nice though you get more of that from the book. The movie does do a very good job of bringing the essence of the book to the screen and doesn't mess around much with the story. That's probably because Gillian Flynn herself wrote the screenplay. The book goes further past the ending where the movie stopped and you get a much better idea of what their life together going forward will be like and you have no sympathy for either of them, feeling that they pretty much deserve each other. You don't quite get that from the movie though you don't feel Nick is as sympathetic as he has made out either. You don't need to read the book to get the movie, in fact, I had forgotten the detail at the end of the book anyway, though i knew the main ending and the gist of it.
I was also dubious about Ben Affleck as Nick Dunne but he was quite good. Rosamund Pike is a British actress but does American very well and she was great as Amy. Neil Patrick Harris played Amy's old boyfriend Desi Collings with just the right amount of creepy. For a book that's uber-popular, the book everyone's reading, those books don't often end up impressing me much by the time I read them and I almost never like the movies made from them. This was an exception on both counts. I liked the book, written from both Amy and Nick's point of view and the movie was cast well and held close to the book as well.
Thanksgiving feasting later today. Spending some time with one of my best friends tomorrow. Top weekend!