The first reviews for David Fincher‘s Gone Girl have arrived and for the most part they are positive.
On the supportive side of things Variety calls it “surgically precise, grimly funny and entirely mesmerizing“; The Wrap says it will “plenty of loud shouts of applause, awed sounds of surprise, and shocked laughter, but what makes it worthy of them is all the hushed, uneasy conversations it’s guaranteed to inspire in the long, unsettled silence to come after” and Vulture says it “is phenomenally gripping–although it does leave you queasy, uncertain what to take away on the subject of men, women, marriage, and the possibility of intimacy from the example of such prodigiously messed-up people…”
Those not so supportive include Screen Daily calling it a “a standard police procedural that promptly loses momentum”; The Hollywood Reporter says it plays like Fincher’s adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, leaving “you with a quietly lingering feeling of: ‘Is that all there is?‘” and over at The Independent they say it “is so full of reversals and so laden with irony that its attempts at a ‘Husbands And Wives’-style anatomy of a relationship under strain soon begin to founder” before adding “This isn’t an especially insightful film about what makes marriages creak but it is very entertaining and provocative one that fully justifies its lengthy running time.”
Based on Gillian Flynn‘s best-selling novel, Gone Girl is said to unearth the secrets at the heart of a modern marriage. On the occasion of his fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) reports that his beautiful wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), has gone missing. Under pressure from the police and a growing media frenzy, Nick’s portrait of a blissful union begins to crumble. Soon his lies, deceits and strange behavior have everyone asking the same dark question: Did Nick Dunne kill his wife?
Many more critics will be seeing it this week while I’m seeing it next Monday as we near the October 3 release. It does seem, however, with this mixed bag of reviews for a film based on a piece of airport fiction, that its chances at a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars might be up for question.
Below is a new TV spot along with plenty more pictures from the movie. What do these reviews tell you about the film’s chances, not only at the Oscars but with general audiences as well?
