An interesting choice of film to see on our wedding anniversary, David Fincher’s take on Gillian Flynn’s best-seller didn’t disappoint.

Writer turned bar owner Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) finds himself thrust into the media spotlight, then a murder investigation, when his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) vanishes on their wedding anniversary.

A dark, tense look at relationships, the media and the lies we tell ourselves and each other; unlike my wife I’d not read the book beforehand. With plenty of twists and turns, I found this adaptation gripping and sharply written for the most part.

Calling on elements of previous work from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo to Zodiac, Fincher is right at home with the source material. It was good to see he stuck with telling the same story from both Nick’s present and Amy’s past.

It’s not as showy as his previous movies; it’s the performances that shine here.

Pike is excellent, her Amy is deployable but you can’t help but admire her drive and ingenuity. You really feel for Affleck’s everyman Nick, not without his own faults, as everybody takes it in turns to tighten the screws. Carrie Coon is great as Nick’s increasingly fragile sister Margo while Tyler Perry provides just the right amount of playfulness as his lawyer Tanner Bolt.

The bloated running time becomes more noticeable in the third half; not helped by the fact it lacks the pace of the first two and the finale fizzles rather than explodes.

Still, I’d definitely recommend it.

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