'Gone Girl' Review Roundup: David Fincher, Ben Affleck Picture Scores Top Notices From Critics

Gone Girl, starring Ben Affleck and directed by David Fincher, adapts Gillian Flynn‘s best-selling novel of the same name for the big screen.

In Gone Girl, Affleck plays Nick Dunne, a charismatic yet devious husband whose wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) mysteriously disappears. Nick becomes the main suspect in Amy’s disappearance, as the media and law enforcement close in on the case. Serving as evidence in the case is the unreliable diary kept by Amy herself, who wrote of a troubled marriage that often made her feel unsafe. Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry and Carrie Coon also star.

‘Gone Girl’ Reviewed

Reviews for Gone Girl have been positive across the board. In Fincher’s hands and with a script penned by Flynn, the movie is thought to have possibly elevated the book to new heights. As far as Affleck and Pike’s performances, critics have lauded both actors, finding them perfect for their equally charming and chilling roles.

“[Gone Girl] is not just a triumph of story but of strategy, a movie that keeps the audience grasping and reaching in all the wrong directions, while consistently delivering something a little better, a little crazier and a little more disturbing than expected.” – Mike LaSalle, The San Francisco Chronicle

“Pike and Affleck are perfectly cast. She’s a femme fatale, a blond noir woman with dagger eyes, and Pike envelops herself in a constantly shifting role. Affleck, criticized in the past as too charming for his own good, plays up that quality and makes Nick both callow and sympathetic. Gone Girl thrives on enigma, and the leads embody that quality to wonderful effect.” – Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News

“Gone Girl presents a succession of shimmering surfaces, each more seductive and opaque than the last. That’s not the only way in which this could be said to resemble its title character, the mysteriously missing Amy Elliott Dunne. Amy is polished, perfectionistic, coolly cerebral, and sometimes startlingly cruel. So is Fincher’s ninth film, a deliciously manipulative mystery that toys with the viewer like a femme fatale with her prey.” – Dana Stevens, Slate

“For nearly 2½ hours — a running time that glides by surprisingly briskly — either or both of the dysfunctional marital partners come off as alternately diabolical and sympathetic, convincing and unreliable, appealing and appalling. With its twists, turns and wildly swerving switchbacks, the insidious story keeps the viewer fully absorbed, and on ever-shifting ground.” – Claudia Puig, USA Today

Gone Girl, rated R, is currently in wide release.