When Gillian Flynn, author of “Gone Girl,” which has sold more than two million copies, finished writing her screenplay for a film, she gave it to her husband to read - along with a yellow magic marker.
“I told him to underline anything he objected to,” says Flynn, author of two other novels and a former writer for Entertainment Weekly. “I told him I would delete or rework anything he objected to, because these characters are pretty mean to each other, and I didn’t want anyone to think I had based any of it on him.”
Her husband read the script and returned it unmarked.
One of the bleakest and most honest depictions of a troubled marriage to hit the best-seller list - as well as a corker of a mystery and a commentary on the country’s economic instability and the carnivorous nature of the media - “Gone Girl” seemed perfect for a movie, except for one thing. The novel was filled with flashbacks and diary entries that would require voiceovers, the bane of most filmmakers. The story also had the chronology of a puzzle, with not everything making sense until the last page.
Still, when Flynn’s script started making the rounds, it caught the attention of David Fincher (“The Social Network,” “Seven,” “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”), who asked Flynn if she would have dinner with him in St. Louis, where he was shooting a project.
“My wife had read the book and told me there was something really interesting there,” says Fincher. “I was blown away by it. But I also knew Gillian was contractually bound to deliver a first draft of a script soon, so I waited for that. I didn’t know if you could solve the diary, the flashbacks, if you could integrate all that without it feeling intrusive. I wasn’t convinced it was possible. And then I read her script and thought ‘You can do this! She had cracked it.’”
Except for a slightly different ending (which still preserves the tone of the book) and the omission of a few minor characters, “Gone Girl,” which opens today, is one of the most faithful film adaptations ever made. Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike play Nick and Amy Dunne, whose happy existence in New York City is derailed when they lose their jobs writing for magazines and move back to Missouri to take care of Nick’s ailing mother. He opens a neighborhood bar with his sister and settles down into a blue-collar life, while Amy becomes increasingly unhappy about their new home. Then, on their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick is at the bar when he gets a call from a neighbor, saying his front door is ajar.
Nick rushes back home and finds signs of a struggle - broken furniture, shattered glass, traces of blood - and no Amy. The police become involved and, as usual, the husband becomes the primary subject. But without Amy’s body, which has vanished, no charges can be brought against anyone. And the longer the body is missing, the more guilty Nick appears.
Like the book, “Gone Girl” is a terrific thriller. But it also has a lot to say about the nature of marriage and questions how well we can ever really know another person.
For the role of Nick, Fincher cast Affleck, who survived the Bennifer media storm and came out of it unscathed. He’s happily married to Jennifer Garner, a best picture Oscar winner for “Argo” and cast in the role of the Dark Knight in the upcoming “Batman vs. Superman.”
For the critical role of Amy, Fincher cast Rosamund Pike (“Jack Reacher,” “Wrath of the Titans”), who had appeared in some big films but was far from a household name - at least until now.
“I want to see her honesty,” Fincher says. “I had seen her in four or five different things, but I didn’t know who she was. I met her in St. Louis, we had drinks, she went back to Scotland. She is inscrutable. You are never going to get to the bottom of her. When I asked her if she was an only child, she said yes, and that’s what I knew Amy had to have. She had a lot of resentment toward Nick for uprooting her life. She grew up with notion of someone with a perfect image of herself that her parents helped to invent. At first, in Nick, she sees everything she ever wanted. You can see the she adulates him. But then later things … change.”
Fincher believes that despite the popularity of the book, a lot of people will be exposed to “Gone Girl” for the first time in the theater, which will be a fun communal experience because of the dizzying number of twists. Every time you think you know where the movie’s headed, you’re wrong.
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