Book To Film: Gone Girl

2014 saw the release of Gone Girl, a film adaptation of Gillian Flynn's novel of the same name. While the film was considered one of director David Fincher's best films, rightfully so, and highlights the immersive and mesmerising performances of Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck, I think that that Gone Girl is the perfect film to truly show the power, the skill and the artfulness of shaping a story to one's own image. Gillian Flynn wrote the book and also adapted it into a screenplay for David Fincher. Her skill in creating a screenplay with a three-act structure that put every act in a different genre takes an immense amount of understanding of the story's background and mood. I would go as far as to say that had she (Flynn) not wrote the book herself, the screenplay and thus, the film would look very different than the one we know today.

ACT 1: Mystery

Gillian Flynn starts the first act of with the one genre that's specifically designed to hook audiences and plant the seeds of curiosity in their minds. Mystery. Who doesn't love a murder mystery? Writers with a mastery of not only their stories, but genre's are a different animal from the Dan Browns and the Anthony Horowitzs. Take nothing away from the two of them, but they have a genre that they are comfortable with and use that most of the time. Gillian Flynn's method of arranging the context of her story into one set genre that is able to then transition and evolve, not by simply revealing new information in the same way but by revealing it in a whole new world. One that isn't completely governed by the rules of the previous one.

Gillian begins just like any other muder mystery. The scene of the crime.

Broken table, smashed glass and furniture in a mess. Intriguing start no doubt. At this point we only know that something's happened. Our brains start moving. Is she dead? Did someone kidnapp her? Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) looks worried. The previous scene was him complaining to his sister about his shambles of a marriage. So with that knowledge in mind, our question as the audience becomes, Did he kill her? Good. The audience is thinking. We've told them that their marriage isn't doing well, Amy (Rosamund Pike) sounds like a horribly naggy wife from the conversation between Nick and his sister at the bar. Now this. How do we go from here?

Lets give the audience more ambiguity.

The letters. Now we have a game on our hands. Nick isn't on the best terms with his wife, she disappears and it looks like she was kidnapped. Now the letters marked "clue". Is this the kidnapper playing some game? From the various intercut scenes of their early marriage we see that it wasn't always bad for Nick and Amy. They were once a couple very much in love.

The two of them in this dizzy, cheesy, Rom-Com state that all early relationships have. We now know that for every anniversary, Nick and Amy have a treasure hunt. Each year has a different theme. We think back to the clue letters, could this be misdirection? Could this simply be some kind of kinky anniversary shit in like a 50 Shades of Grey context? As after this scene in the picture above, Nick and Amy "go at it" in the back room.

And then...

The diary entries. What we thought was a convenient tool to explore Amy's thoughts was actually the very thing that drives the story forward while also allowing it to transition. These diary entries were the bridge, the avenue that in my opinion, allowed Flynn and Fincher to cross genre's so effortlessly. Fincher's classic cold colour palette and love for a dark story with characters repeating their mistakes pairs wonderfully with Gillian Flynn's second act.

ACT 2: Thriller

The "cool girl" scene is one of my favourites as it firmly grasps onto the Thriller genre and now establishes Amy as the "villain" but one that we as the audience can get behind and root for. Amy scathingly talks about how women often mould themselves to be the "perfect girl" for their man. The goes on to admit that she herself fell into this rabbit hole and changed who she was for her man aka Nick. She says that in some ways she's grateful for the things Nick brought out in her but she then talks about how she made Nick a better man, a smarter man. This is when we as the audience truly realise the scope of the film and its plot now becomes more fully formed in our eyes, as the story unfolds beautifully and with such poise. This perfectly sets up the last and final act.

But Before Then...

Yes. This shocking scene. It's that scene that makes every audience member hold their hands over their mouths in shock. For those of you who watched this film on a laptop, let me be the first to say. It's not the same. Seeing this scene on the big screen, in a dark room with other people gasping and even screaming isn't something to shrug at. The violent nature of this kill truly spelt out Amy's clarity in her decision. As she has sex with her obsessed stalker, Desi who's played by Neil Patrick Harris who is obviously well-known for his comedic roles, but brings in this role a wonderfully serious, yet creepy performance that really keeps people on edge. He fits perfectly with the tone of the film and its tense nature.

Neil Patrick Harris as Desi Collings in Gone Girl (2014)

And Finally...

ACT 3: SATIRE

The ending to Gone Girl is one of those that'll leave you, the audience screaming at the screen. When Amy returns home to Nick after killing Desi and framing him for her "kidnapping" Nick is then cleared of all charges and the "happy couple" are now minor celebrities in their own right. Nick now knows what Amy is capable of and wants nothing to do with her. Amy wants this marriage to work and tries to reason with Nick with her psycho killer vibe all out in the open. Nick continuously rejects her until he finds out that Amy had artificially inseminated herself with Nick's sperm that he had donated previously when they were trying for a baby. Nick now feels a sense of duty to his unborn child who will be raised by his psycho wife and decides to stay. Reluctantly.

Gillian Flynn has created a multi-faceted story with immense potential for adaptability in genres across film in general. The true power of a story without equal is the many different ways it can be seen as interpreted while still maintaining its core values.

The questions I ask are:

1. why is the role of the writer so overlooked in films?

2. Are there any other movies that display the same type of adaptability?

3. How can we go about educating people about what it is a writer contributes to a film and why they deserve more credit than they get right now?