A sleek crime mystery that is as outrageous as it is chilling, Gone Girl finds David Fincher once again at his immersive, crafty best in his continued exploration into the darker depths of the human condition.

Fincher has guided us through many dark avenues in his portraits of humanity at its most sinister. Where Seven was his bleakest work and Zodiac his most epic, Gone Girl is Fincher at his wittiest and seedy in its chronicle of a marriage that bears unexpected, rotten fruit which a scandal hungry country devours with glee.

Said married couple is Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike), five years into a slowly corroding coupling that ceases when Amy goes missing (presumed dead) and Nick is left to defend himself against a mounting case made even worse by his questionable behaviour.

Of course there is much more to this adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s bestselling novel of the same name (which she adapted to the big screen), with many a twist and turn and gasp throughout this tit-for-tat murder mystery that will test the loyalty of its audience, and do so all over again.

This is of high importance since the role of the public as judge, jury and executioner plays a big part in a movie where perceptions are everything, especially in a climate where the media and the masses feed off one another like a snake swallowing its own tail.

As a result Gone Girl is the most striking satire into the relationship between the media and violence since Natural Born Killers, made even more potent during this era of social media where knee jerk reactions and mob mentality fester.

Key to the success of Gone Girl is its performances. Ben Affleck plays the unlikeable, questionable, yet wholly sympathetic husband with the right amount of natural, irritating stupidity (aka, asshole) and foreboding darkness, to justify suspicion upon his characters actions.

Yet the real standout is Rosamund Pike, who – having established a steady career of solid supporting turns – has delivered an incredible performance that’s parts sexy and seductive, violent and manipulative, and deliciously deceptive.

It’s all put together in a sleek, entertaining package by the meticulous Fincher and his trusted cohorts who bravely plunge into the depths of human cruelty and emerge triumphant in their artistry. Cinematographer Jess Cronenwroth provides crisp digital imagery, editor Kirk Baxtor has crafted an impeccably paced and structured movie (even at 149 minutes), and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross provide an immersive, brooding score that has become part and parcel of Fincher’s works.

The novel which Gone Girl is based on has a reputation as a page turning, water cooler discussion piece, & Fincher's adaptation follows suit. In the hierarchy of Fincher's celebrated works Gone Girl does not register near the top, but it definitely makes its mark as a scandalous piece of high cue entertainment. 

It’s only fitting then that a movie about the corrupting power of gossip will create much of its own.