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| Ben Affleck in "Gone Girl" |
Matt Mattingly and I saw “Gone Girl,” a wonderfully
contrived suspense thriller with the added treat of a mordant Hitchcockian sense
of humor.
The story dares to offer non-ordinary characters from the
outset. The heroine’s parents used her as the model of an internationally
famous children’s book character, Amazing Amy — not the kind of thing that
happened to anyone you know. And we have Riddler-like clues embedded into the
plot with ruthless logic, and surprises big and small arriving every few
minutes like razor-filled Candygrams. The film also takes welcome shots at the
harpies who pitch ratbag, emotion-whore tabloid TV, and the fickleness of a
herd-like American viewing public stupid enough to thunder away in whatever
direction their cynical media wranglers care to stampede them.
The 1973 film “The Last of Sheila,” written by Stephen Sondheim
and Anthony Perkins, springs to mind as another movie that offers a similar set
of calculated puzzle-box delights.
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