Director: David Fincher
Writer: Gillian Flynn, based on her novel
Cinematography: Jeff Cronenweth
Editor: Kirk Baxter
Music: Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
Notable Cast: Emily Ratajkowski, Sela Ward, Scoot McNairy
David Fincher, for some weird reason, has become something of a third rail when it comes to people who live and breathe films. While the usual dopes who worship Christopher Nolan and Paul Thomas Anderson don’t seem to put Fincher on that level, they almost always slot him in just a smidge below them. Mind you, I think they’re all nuts. While I dig some of PTA’s work and can clearly see an intelligence and grace to his art, even if I think half his filmography stinks, I cannot say the same for Nolan or Fincher. I am merely putting you in the proper context of how utterly maddening online film analysis has gotten.
But let’s back up a bit. It’s the summer of 1992, and this young film fan was still in the opening stages of what would become a lifelong devotion to watching film. I didn’t have cable growing up, so MTV wasn’t a thing. I was clueless when it came to music videos or hot music video directors. Alien 3 is released, and I saw it opening day. It’s fucking Aliens. No idea who the director is, I’m just pumped for the new Alien flick. My buddy, Altos, and I made a pact to sit through the movie twice in a row on opening day. Hard to remember now why we agreed to do that, but as a 17 year old, who fucking cares, life is what you make it. We watched Alien 3 the first time, and the lights come up, and we were like “what the fuck did we just watch?”
We knew it was something special, but at this point we thought it merely good… interesting, but good. Solid, but not amazing. Then we watched it a second time just moments later, and it was like the clouds had parted and Jesus had come down. Alien 3 is the best film in the Alien franchise. Oh yeah, motherfucker, what? Don’t give a fuck. Had I done what the lot of you did, I’d probably be in the same boat. But that second viewing just minutes after watching it for the first time, was revelatory. Fincher became a god to us, a fucking god. The mood, the atmosphere, the shots, the environments, the lighting – we couldn’t believe it. Alien 3 was filmmaking on a level we had rarely seen.
And then came Seven (not Se7en, don’t be an idiot). And like most people, I fucking loved it. At the time. Real important to add that qualifier, “at the time.” Cause I do not think Seven has aged well. And no, it has nothing to do with Kevin Spacey diddling struggling actors looking for fame. Due to no fault of its own, Seven was copied so many times that it lost something along the way. But the same thing happened to Scream and the original Scream is still a fantastic flick, and holds up remarkably well. Seven just… doesn’t.
And then The Game. Eh… I remember being very disappointed with the whole thing. Felt like a goof, and a waste of Fincher’s prodigious talents. While it did feature one of my favorite actresses, Deborah Kara Unger, the film was inert. Just did not get me going.
Fight Club was fucking amazing. At the time. See, here we go with that little thing again. Fight Club has aged worse than Seven, if you ask me. Watched it recently and it reeks of the 1990’s style, and not in a good way. But at the time, wow, Fincher was fucking back, and in a big motherfucking way. It was the picture to see. Groundbreaking narrative work of art. But alas…
Panic Room. Like, really? Fuck, come on.
Zodiac. Sorry, dear friends, Zodiac is a perfectly well made… whatever. Watched it once, was bored. Doesn’t really hit on an emotional level. I know this opinion makes lots of film folks think I have no idea what I’m talking about. It’s okay, they’re wrong.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Come on. No.
The Social Network. No. Especially now. Fuck no.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Yawn.
Seriously. You tell me what Fincher’s “thing” is. When I think of the greats, I can think of what kind of filmmaker they are. Lynch, Cronenberg, Stone, Scorsese, Ferrara, Allen – there’s underlying themes and you feel a sense of the artist behind the camera, and not in an obtrusive way, but in the way of all great art, you feel it. There is none of that with Fincher. But he is a talented visualist, and I kept going back for more.
And so it was as I sat in a darkened theater, and Gone Girl unfolded before me.
1ST 5 MINUTES
Oh shit, what’s this? Some dope ethereal music over the studio logo? LOVE IT. Right away the film is putting me in some kind of mood.
And then Ben Affleck’s opening lines in voiceover:
“When I think of my wife, I always think of her head. I picture cracking her lovely skull, unspooling her brains, trying to get answers. The primal questions of any marriage. What are you thinking? How are you feeling? What have we done to each other?”
He says this first over the credits, and then we fade in to the back of Rosamund Pike’s head, lying on his bare chest, as he gently strokes her hair. She looks up at him as he asks those final questions.
WOW. I don’t know about you, but I am in heaven, absolutely love this opening! That writing, with the shot and the music. Great shit. But Rosamund Pike? (Insert side eye here)
Then we cut to various, locked off shots of what seems to be a blue-collar neighborhood at dawn, before any activity begins. Very good atmosphere here, though I must say I wish Fincher let these shots breathe a bit more. No matter, this is an absolute knockout first 90 seconds.
But we’re here for the 1ST 5 Minutes, not the 1ST 90 Seconds.
Next we get our first shot of Ben Affleck. Not sure what your thoughts are on him as an actor, but mine are decidedly negative. No offense to him, but to me, he’ll always be the douchebag from Fashionable Male in Kevin Smith’s Mallrats (what a great movie). Don’t find him convincing in any other role. But as a douchebag? He was perfect.
We’re already going downhill, and fast. He’s looking around, confused. Hard to tell if this is just how Affleck looks or if he is trying to act here. Then there’s a very poorly acted/written scene between Affleck and Carrie Coon, an actress who looks NOTHING like Affleck, in the least bit, despite them not only being siblings but TWIN siblings. Do the casting people give even the slightest shit here? How about Fincher?! A million actresses in Hollywood who could convincingly do this nothing role and THIS is who he chooses? Wild shit.
Cut to a diary being written by Rosamund Pike. She’s describing meeting the man of her dreams or some such shit and we fade to a party where she meets Affleck. The whole scene has Fincher’s trademark “pissed on” yellow filters, and some pretty shitty dialogue, including some awkward blocking when Pike walks away briefly from Affleck in the middle of their discussion for no reason whatsoever except to give them more coverage of this boring “meet cute.”
I’m already on the record as not liking Affleck as an actor, and now we have Rosamund Pike on top of it. Somehow they found an actor I engage with less than Affleck. Pike is an ice queen, and a slight mannequin. I can always see her acting. No idea how she has a career, not that that’s anything new in Hollywood. First thing I saw her in was some shitty Pierce Brosnan Bond flick, and I’ve yet to see her be good in anything else, including this. She just exudes “statue.” Incredibly phony actress. I wanted to watch Saltburn but can’t, for the simple fact she’s in it. That’s how important casting is. Here they’ve already dropped the ball three fucking times and it's only been 5 goddamn minutes!
Fucking Fincher, man…
And that wraps up the 1ST 5 Minutes of Gone Girl. After an absolute genius first 90 seconds, it was all downhill from there. Is that first 90 seconds enough to keep watching? Not really.
But watch it I did.
The rest of the flick
And it was terrible.
David Fincher is a studio hack. There, I said it. He’s a director for hire who makes largely soulless trash. There’s no personality to his art, nothing that you couldn’t get from a lot of other talented visualists. I know I know, HERESY!!! Fuck that.
Like Ridley Scott, who I think is a vastly better filmmaker than David Fincher, he’s a hired hand. He doesn’t author any of his projects as he is not a writer. Nothing really comes from Fincher’s mind, per se. He uses other people’s ideas and words to craft his films. There are some really good filmmakers who do this. Fincher is not one of them. But why?
Well, let’s look at this film for a minute. The casting is atrocious. With better actors, this film might be a bit better. Can you imagine being Fincher, having all this juice, and you pick Ben fucking Affleck as your lead? What the fuck was he thinking? Mind boggling. Doogie Howser? Really? Tyler Perry? Come the fuck on. Missi Pyle? Please. This is all on Fincher.
The script! Gillian Flynn’s book may be okay, who knows. But writers adapting their own novels have a spotty track record, at best. And here it doesn’t work. There’s something very manufactured about the dialogue. It all just lies there, inert, emotionless, cutesy even. This, too, is on Fincher. As the director who doesn’t write, you need to be ever more careful of which scripts you take on. As I’ve seen time and time again with him, he has a hard time identifying good material. Some things that seem like good ideas are just that, good ideas, but they’re not movies. Chris Nolan suffers from same malady. But at least Fincher had a hay day, which is more than I can say for Nolan, who has never made a great movie, “at the time” or not.
I won’t keep going, cause what’s the point and it’s no fun when a movie sucks. I want to write about dope shit here. But I am also forced to be honest. This movie is unwatchable. I sat down to watch it again for this post, but couldn’t even make it 30 minutes. Amazing Amy? Fuck off with that shit. When I saw this flick in the theater, I remember it being average. I was too kind. This is a nicely shot and slightly better acted Lifetime movie, right down to the plot twists.
Gone Girl is not a good movie, and it is quite evident by the end of the 1ST 5 Minutes, even if there is a slight head fake with that amazing opening VO. But that’s all it is, a good line, and a good line does not a good movie make.
Oh, David… I suppose we’ll always have Alien 3!
The One Sheet
Not a terrible one sheet. I like the white frame, and the distortion lines toward the bottom of the image. Superimposed eyes are lame, but the letters with the cloud are nice. Tagline foreshadows the cutesy nature of a film that wants to be serious and ridiculous in equal measure.
That does it for Gone Girl, a very dull, obvious and boring crime “thriller” with poor casting and worse writing. I refuse to see Mank, and The Killer looks like more Fincher trash. Pretty sure I’m done with Fincher, just like some of you may be done with me after this post. So be it.
See you, or not, in two…