Movie Review: Gone Girl

Details: Released in 2014. Runs for about two hours and a half. Stars Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike.

A while back I tried to sit through a viewing of this movie and failed miserably at it. It was just unbearable to watch. It was cheesy, and corny, and melodramatic, and everyone in the film was so stupid and pretentious, as was the writing for this film. Anyways, I watched The Girl on the Train and kind of enjoyed it, so I decided to force myself through this movie and to try to keep an open mind doing so.

As with The Girl on the Train, I thought this film was okay. Like that film, Gone Girl played out in exactly the overly dramatic, campy, hyperbolic way that I expected it would. I wrote a little about this in the review for The Girl on the Train, but I just did not relate to the motivations of the characters or their decision making. Does no one in these films know how to communicate? Please, if anyone is reading this and is having problems with their significant others, don’t come up with an elaborate plan for murder, just talk it out please. Don’t be as fucking stupid or overly dramatic as the dumb fucks in this movie. I felt like I was watching the rationalization of a thirteen year old teenager rather than the decision making of well off, full grown adults.

Anyways, the premise is this: Ben Affleck plays a husband who comes home to find his famous wife missing. A media circus promptly ensues as Affleck has to maneuver around accusations of being responsible for his wife’s disappearance.

When I first tried to sit through this film, the part of the movie I walked out on was when the media started getting involved and I realized that this was going to be a film on public perception and the role the media plays in our society. I just did not want to watch a film about gossip and sensationalist media. Now, that I’ve actually seen the whole film, I can now say my fear were exactly right. This is a film about murder mysteries and daytime gossip trash T.V. And yet, I was still somewhat entertained.

I think the biggest problem is that this film does not target the demographic I belong in. I feel like this film is, like The Girl on the Train, targeting bored housewives who spend their days reading mystery or romance novels and sitting around watching entertainment news shows or reading the gossip magazines. In fact, a character actually formulates the grand master plan by reading murder mysteries and using the strategies found in those books. It’s a vicious cycle of stupid. I just wanted to shout at the screen, “Why the fuck didn’t you just get divorced?! You had a fucking prenup! In fact, why did you marry such a dumb/fake/crazy fuck in the first place?! Be better judges of character you fucking children!!”

Watching this kind of stuff just gives me stress because I deal with this kind of stupid in real life. I don’t watch movies to stress myself even further with campy, unrealistic dialogue and immaturity and psychopathy I can find in my own work place. I watch movies to feel better or feel something I can’t find in my real life. This movie mostly gave me frustration. I already have plenty of that. Plus, the dialogue and plot progression made me cringe with their campy-ness and melodrama.

The one thing I did enjoy, like in The Girl on the Train, was the familiar faces of the cast. Tyler Perry, Doogie Howser, and the lawyer from Jack Reacher, at least at the time this movie was released, did not have the star power of Ben Affleck. it was still was nice to see them in these roles. The actors did a fine job with the material they were given.

Score: 5/10 I know lots of people loved this movie and I understand why. Films like this are not my cup of tea and are not the reason I go to theaters. I didn’t feel like I was all that entertained, nor did I gain anything by the end of the movie.

Movie Review: The Girl on the Train

Details: Released in 2016. Runs under two hours long. Stars Emily Blunt.

A while back, I went to a friend’s house and had the chance to watch Gone Girl. I sat for about twenty minutes and decided that this movie was pretty shit. It was that dialogue. It sounded like something written by a bored, disconnected housewife with not real concept of how people actually spoke. It watched like the fantasy of a mother of four, aspiring to rise to the level of romance of crime novels that she read in her spare time. It was cringe worthy.

So I gave up and never watched it again. Fast forward a year or so and now another movie in the same vein has been released. I did some research and found that this movie is not a sequel nor based on any books written by the author who wrote the book that Gone Girl was based on. However, this is clearly a movie seeking to replicate the success that Gone Girl achieved. With an open mind, I decided to give it a watch and that no matter how much I cringed from the corny dialogue and plot points, I would give the film a chance and watch it to the end with an open mind.

The premise is this: Emily Blunt plays a drunk, emotionally damaged divorcee who, during one of her drunken blackouts, may have witnessed or even caused the murder of someone else. She doesn’t know and spends the rest of the film sussing through her memories and trying to figure it out while getting her alcoholic life back on track.

After sitting through the film, I can honestly say that it was all right. This film is essentially the spiritual sequel to Gone Girl. In other words, it features a strong, female lead with a dark world view. There are elements of murder, mystery, and romantic drama. Like Gone Girl, the dialogue sounds like it was written by a bored, middle aged house wife for other bored, middle aged housewives. It’s clear to me as I was watching it that I am clearly not the demographic that this was aimed at. However, I did still derived some entertainment from it.

I think the main problem I have with films of this genre, along with other dramas or even horror movies, is that I just don’t identify or relate to the characters, nor can I agree with their actions. One of the reasons I dislike horror movies is because the characters keep doing stupid things I would not do. Oh, a murderer is chasing you in the dark? Then we should split up! Dark alleyway ahead? Let’s go explore it! There must certainly be no monsters in there! I find this kind of decision making just fucking stupid and that’s how I felt about the decisions the characters made in this film. They just kept doing stupid shit that made their situations worse. For instance, in the opening sequence Emily Blunt sits in a certain place on a train where she can watch couples and drives her crazy since she’s a divorcee. At the end of the movie, she moves forward by sitting on the other side of the train so she can avoid seeing those couples. Why couldn’t you just fucking do that earlier and avoided all the fucking crazy you later unleashed you dumb fucking bitch!?!?! Just change your fucking seat!!!

I guess that’s why I like movies that take place in different worlds or unrealistic settings. Watching idiots make such bad decisions over and over again is just frustrating. I mean, there are enough idiots like that in real life, I don’t get any enjoyment from paying and watching that kind of stupidity on a big screen.

The one thing I did like from this movie is that, like Gone Girl, the cast is filled with a great number of familiar, B-list actors. It’s always fun trying to identify  where you’ve seen certain actors before and seeing them in this kind of campy, murder mystery. Off the top of my head, I saw Jennifer Aniston’s husband, an assassin from an old Bourne identity movie, that guy from Dracula, and the female lead in one of the Mission Impossible films. It’s really fun picking them out. Emily Blunt is probably the only A-list actor here and is, accordingly, the lead in the film. Additionally, all the actors put up fine performances with Emily Blunt looking more disheveled and crazy than I’ve ever seen her.

Score: 6/10 An okay film. Not my cup of tea, but I can see why a lot of people would like this kind of movie.