You don't know what you've got till its...........Gone....

“I often don't say things out loud, even when I should. I contain and compartmentalize to a disturbing degree: In my belly-basement are hundreds of bottles of rage, despair, fear, but you'd never guess from looking at me.”

― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

When l walked into the bookshop and walked out with 4 new books one of them was Gone Girl – brought simply for the cover. l found it interesting that there we two different covers to choose from both the same except one was black and one was orange – l asked what the reason was for them and was told nothing but the more l looked l thought there must be a reason and in the end l chose orange.

I didn’t read it straight away. It sat on my book shelf for a while and l forgot about it until l saw it was being made into a movie which made me want to start reading it. I was already in the middle of a book and didn’t want to start another one so for maybe the second time in my life l decided to give the Audio book a go and after listening to the first 15 minutes l was hooked.  l walked around with my earphones on  90% of the time and listened to it in my car (19 and a half hours of listening in 3 days).  The book follows the story of Nick and Amy Dunne and is told by both of them at different points throughout the story.  Nick Dunne comes home to find his wife Amy missing – the victim of a possible abduction.  After he calls the police the search is on to find her with Nick swiftly becoming a possible suspect in her ‘disappearance’.

The Audiobook is read by Julia Whelan (Amy)and/or Kirby Heyborne  (Nick) as we are hearing things from either Nick’s or Amy’s differing perspectives and moving from past to present, and having these voice’s in your head makes this fantastic story even better and the characters all the more believable.

This has been my favourite book for the year but that being said, if you like to connect to your main characters this may not be the book for you as neither Nick nor Amy are likeable characters. We learn a lot of their personal back story.  Amy is the product of parents who used her as a model for the heroine in a popular range of children’s books they write called “Amazing Amy” which you learn more about as our story goes on. On Nick’s side we have his brutal father & downtrodden mother and one of the few likable characters in the book - his twin sister Go (short for Margot). There are other characters throughout the book Desi (Amy’s ex-boyfriend who has a story of his own) and Hilary Handy (a ‘best friend’ from Amy’s school days). These 2 characters l found to be extremely interesting. Their parts may not be large but they offer a lot of insight into the past of our main character. There are of course other characters within the book but let’s not give too much away here. Giliian Flynn weaves a story full of intrigue, doubt and tension in a beautiful way. Her writing is not hard to read although her subject matter is a little confronting at times (I will admit there was one scene that l found hard to listen to) she uses diary entries to tell us past events which makes our time jumps to the past extremely easy to follow and is sometimes wanted when the present story is getting a little too heavy.  l have read some people hated the ending – personally l loved it and thought  it made the book even more enjoyable and even though l now know how it ends I would read it again and again.  

Now we skip forward 4 months and it’s the day after l have watched Gone Girl starring Ben Affleck as Nick Dunne, Rosamund Pike as Amy Dunne and directed by David Fincher.  My first instinct when a favourite book of mine is turned into a movie is to anticipate all the ways that Hollywood will get it wrong.  Thankfully that doesn’t happen to this one. Our screenplay for the movie was written by the author Gillian Flynn and this shows straight away. Some lines are simply word for word from the book and you can tell she has spent countless hours crafting the characters and events for her novel, so she knows intimately by the time the screen play is ready.

David’s directing is noticeable from the start and anyone familiar with his work knows he is a master behind the camera and brings the best out in his actors (Fight Club, Se7en and Zodiac). The movie is visually stunning to watch and uses the subject matter to mirror its background showing a town in the middle or a recession – half empty and with high rates of unemployment.  We then come to our characters whose marriage of 5 years has turned somewhat toxic - all in all everything looks a little downtrodden and this works. Nick’s despair grows once the media gets involved  in the mystery  taking place, descending like a pack of vultures feeding on a carcase (this being Nick Dunne). This is all shown in a bleak but rather beautiful way, the colours on screen are quite muted at times and everything, down to our actors, feels convincingly real.  The themes are familiar to Fincher, and he assembles them in a brilliant fashion, showing that he was the perfect choice to direct. We then have the remarkable score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. With its pulse pounding moments the score is what gives some scenes a whole new level of horror, reminiscent of the brilliant score for The Shining. l would like them to at least be acknowledged when Oscar time comes around. This movie is not the easiest subject matter to add music to but this pair accomplishes it masterfully.

The star of this movie was Rosamund Pike playing our “Amazing Amy”.  She demands the screen, playing with the audience's mind, making you begin to question everything you hear and see and for those who have read the book have no fear - Rosamund has taken the character of Amy and played her to a T. Even though it’s too early for the Oscar buzz l think it will be hard to beat Rosamund’s acting here, she does not falter once. 

 Ben Affleck plays Nick Dunne and if anybody still questions his acting abilities – sit down and watch this movie.  Ben takes on the role and plays the part extremely, well showing Nick’s callowness.  I think you never know quite how you feel about him. Apart from the two leads, the film also benefits from an intriguing supporting cast and has  several actors who show a side of themselves that l wasn’t sure was possible especially Tyler Perry and Neil Patrick-Harris. Two other  actors unknown to me but definitely worth a mention are Carrie Coon as Nick’s sister Go whose feisty outgoing nature is welcome in what is a very jaw clenching and tense film and Kim Dickens as Detective Rhoda Boney,  another of the few really likeable characters in the film.

I really can’t say much more here without giving away any major plot lines, but l urge you see this movie (better yet read the book too) it’s definitely in my top 5 for this year movies and for those who have read the book after seeing this don’t be surprised if you come out of the cinema with a somewhat sickly smile on your face.