This is a movie based on my favorite book ever and I have to say, it is also one of my favorite movies ever. If I ever write a mystery that gets turned into a movie, I want it done like this... and I kind of want David Fincher to direct it.
I'm going to try to do this without spoiling the end... but that's going to be so difficult. I'll tell you the general structure of what happens though. The book and movie both have a beginning, a middle and an end, as do most things in life. In the beginning you think one thing. You may have a sneaking suspicion that something else is up... but you are quickly debunked. You can try to guess who did it, but ultimately you'll end up having one thought. You really aren't going to like Nick Dunne, whether you think he did it or not and you will just really not understand why he's so stupid. Then there's this big bombshell in the middle of the book that is the biggest twist in the history of the world probably... and you don't know what to believe in your life anymore. On a scale of how shocking it is, I would say about as shocking as in GOT when they killed the main character at the end of season 1! It's pretty damn shocking. And then you're just hooked on the edge of your seat till the end. To use a term from The League, its almost the Vinegar Strokes of the book. You can't stop for anything and you just need to know what's happening and have that in your life. And then it ends and the world is different because of it, and you question everything about existence.
I saw the movie with my parents and my Nana (awkward cause it has a lot of sex in it... plus some tits and I think maybe Ben Affleck's dong? Could be mistaken.). None of them had ever read the book, and I knew that there was no way they would know what was happening... and honestly it was so funny to see their reactions! My mom totally hated Ben Affleck's character in the beginning and then after the big thing was revealed... uhhh! It was just too much! It was so good! And each time they thought they had it figured out there was something else that was new and different and it was funny. I even read the book, knew very well what was going to happen and I was still kind of thinking that the story was going one way. It still totally had me at the edge of my seat!
And I think the movie is much darker than the book also. The bad guy is even more bad in the movie and it's just perfect.
The casting of this movie from every minor role was absolutely amazing. Ben Affleck is absolutely Nick Dunne. Rosamund Pike really got to show her acting range from this role, and I'm sure will get an Oscar nomination for it. The actress that played Go was awesome. There were a lot of more comic actors in this movie in smaller parts and I think that's the way to go with this... it's a very over the top situation and that itself leads to some very comic moments that are almost a parody of itself. If you've ever read the book "The Stranger" by Albert Camus, its kind of like that. With a lot of absurdities and far too incredible moments. If I were to direct that, I would use probably all comic actors to highlight the ridiculousness of it.
One thing I loved about the book that I didn't think the movie would show that much, but it did go into pretty much great detail on was the world that these characters live in. We're in a recession, Amy and Nick are jobless, they move down south to a run-down town that Nick grew up in so that they could help his mother. And the town is brought together, torn apart and kind of rebuilt from this tragedy... and its kind of a dark thing to think about that is very very real. I thought the movie really captured that world. This seems to be kind of a theme in Gillian Flynn's other works as well. I noticed that in the first chapter of Sharp Objects the world doesn't seem that far off.
I highly HIGHLY recommend you go see this movie. It was totally sold out at my movie theater this week, and since our world isn't unlike the world of Gillian Flynn novels, movie theaters are a little rare around here and there is really only one local movie theater that plays big movies now (we somehow have 3 independent movie theaters and 1 revival-type of theater that shows one movie, usually thats been out for a while in one theater for $6.) Read the book too! The book is a little better than the movie... but the movie was pretty damn good.
5 out of 5 stars!
Byeeee!
-Shannon
I'm going to try to do this without spoiling the end... but that's going to be so difficult. I'll tell you the general structure of what happens though. The book and movie both have a beginning, a middle and an end, as do most things in life. In the beginning you think one thing. You may have a sneaking suspicion that something else is up... but you are quickly debunked. You can try to guess who did it, but ultimately you'll end up having one thought. You really aren't going to like Nick Dunne, whether you think he did it or not and you will just really not understand why he's so stupid. Then there's this big bombshell in the middle of the book that is the biggest twist in the history of the world probably... and you don't know what to believe in your life anymore. On a scale of how shocking it is, I would say about as shocking as in GOT when they killed the main character at the end of season 1! It's pretty damn shocking. And then you're just hooked on the edge of your seat till the end. To use a term from The League, its almost the Vinegar Strokes of the book. You can't stop for anything and you just need to know what's happening and have that in your life. And then it ends and the world is different because of it, and you question everything about existence.
I saw the movie with my parents and my Nana (awkward cause it has a lot of sex in it... plus some tits and I think maybe Ben Affleck's dong? Could be mistaken.). None of them had ever read the book, and I knew that there was no way they would know what was happening... and honestly it was so funny to see their reactions! My mom totally hated Ben Affleck's character in the beginning and then after the big thing was revealed... uhhh! It was just too much! It was so good! And each time they thought they had it figured out there was something else that was new and different and it was funny. I even read the book, knew very well what was going to happen and I was still kind of thinking that the story was going one way. It still totally had me at the edge of my seat!
And I think the movie is much darker than the book also. The bad guy is even more bad in the movie and it's just perfect.
The casting of this movie from every minor role was absolutely amazing. Ben Affleck is absolutely Nick Dunne. Rosamund Pike really got to show her acting range from this role, and I'm sure will get an Oscar nomination for it. The actress that played Go was awesome. There were a lot of more comic actors in this movie in smaller parts and I think that's the way to go with this... it's a very over the top situation and that itself leads to some very comic moments that are almost a parody of itself. If you've ever read the book "The Stranger" by Albert Camus, its kind of like that. With a lot of absurdities and far too incredible moments. If I were to direct that, I would use probably all comic actors to highlight the ridiculousness of it.
One thing I loved about the book that I didn't think the movie would show that much, but it did go into pretty much great detail on was the world that these characters live in. We're in a recession, Amy and Nick are jobless, they move down south to a run-down town that Nick grew up in so that they could help his mother. And the town is brought together, torn apart and kind of rebuilt from this tragedy... and its kind of a dark thing to think about that is very very real. I thought the movie really captured that world. This seems to be kind of a theme in Gillian Flynn's other works as well. I noticed that in the first chapter of Sharp Objects the world doesn't seem that far off.
I highly HIGHLY recommend you go see this movie. It was totally sold out at my movie theater this week, and since our world isn't unlike the world of Gillian Flynn novels, movie theaters are a little rare around here and there is really only one local movie theater that plays big movies now (we somehow have 3 independent movie theaters and 1 revival-type of theater that shows one movie, usually thats been out for a while in one theater for $6.) Read the book too! The book is a little better than the movie... but the movie was pretty damn good.
5 out of 5 stars!
Byeeee!
-Shannon
Comments
Post a Comment