Download the Gone Girl screenplay PDF for personal, private use here.

Gone Girl is a further addition to David Fincher’s incredible hitlist. Fincher films have a slickness to them that in any other hands would come across as sugary sweet, Hollywood comfort food.  He cuts the perfect balance between extreme watchability and genuine auteuresque examination of his characters and themes. Gone Girl is drenched in Fincher-isms, from his silky-smooth camera operation to impossibly cunning dialogue, not to mention an enthralling plot. Fincher is a director who seems to never depart from the thriller; from Facebook to Fight Club, it seems that any plot that he takes on, he takes on with an eye for thrills.

Gone Girl is a thriller by nature: you can feel the synergy between director and material. As anyone who's seen it can attest to, Gone Girl is a thrilling film, full of twists, shocks, violence and psychological manipulation. Fincher directs the film with a pervading sense of humour that only works to accentuate the distinctly human darkness that lies behind much of what the film says about life, love, marriage and truth. Rosamund Pike is the standout performer here; an absolute mind-bender of a performance that leaves viewers terrified into a dizzy sense of admiration. That said, the casting of Affleck (a man whose off-screen life makes the plot here almost seem as if it's just the latest snake in the rigged game of snakes and ladders he seems to be playing) is inspired. He delivers an understated but compelling portrayal of the flawed protagonist.

Gone Girl really is a film that has to be watched to understand what is so special about it, ideally with as little knowledge of the plot as possible. The marriage at the centre of the mischievous plot is certainly an atypical representation of wedded life, and yet it’s never wide of the mark in capturing all of the unspoken elements and psychological undergrowth necessarily contained in ‘marital bliss’. A shocking, wickedly funny, darkly satirical film that you can’t pull your eyes from, even if sometimes you wish you could. 

EveryFilmIWatch is multi-channel film review project run by Sebastian Cox, ScriptUp co-founder. Further reviews can be found on Instagram.