Director David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac, The Social Network) always seems to make misery fun. In his ninth feature, Gone Girl, based on Gillian Flynn’s renowned novel, an endlessly twisty and bleak tale of modern marriage gone pernicious unravels. The partnership made between writer and filmmaker though, is a match made in heaven. With Flynn also taking up the movie-adaptation duties for her morbid book, Fincher, notorious for his clinical and chilly eye, meshes perfectly with the unsettling nature of Gone Girl’s prose.

Gone Girl tells the tale of the souring and disintegration of Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy Dunne’s (Rosamund Pike) marriage when on their fifth wedding anniversary Amy goes mysteriously missing. From then on, the plot weaves Nick’s descent into public infamy alongside damning excerpts from Amy’s diary. It’s a back-and-forth structure that can’t be trusted, as both spouses are, for the most part, equal-opportunity liars and frauds.

The ungone half of this couple is Affleck’s Nick, an ex-journalist from New York who, after losing his job, is forced to move back to Missouri to help his ill mother. Nick is essentially a charming nobody, a man who’s been drifting through his marriage and his life. Although, Affleck never plays him so simply, as throughout being torn apart by the merciless daily news cycle, he rarely allows Nick to grieve convincingly or even come off as sincere; the character’s failure to get fully into the role of the mourning husband visible through the very palpable frustration in Affleck’s eyes.

Pike’s Amy, an entirely different kind of beast, is also an unsuccessful writer, and now lives off of the trust-fund set up by her wealthy parents. With Amy, Pike’s work is consistently terrific in having to wear various masks throughout; she’s icy, elusive, sometimes immensely capable, and at other times, completely childish. By the end of the film, numerous versions of Amy have been put on display, but we never truly know her. As for the film’s supporting performances, highly notable turns are provided by Carrie Coon, Kim Dickens, and lastly, (and I never thought I’d write these words) a shockingly good Tyler Perry.

Even with a run time of 148 minutes, Gone Girl remains an incredibly tense and absorbing piece of entertainment – although its meanings are perhaps not so terribly deep. Throughout the movie, there are meditations made on television’s sensationalism, gender politics, and the hidden and performative identities which constitute every marriage. By the disappointing last few minutes though, the meditations prove to be just that: cynical ruminations. Sadly, as the later acts of the film become notably more heightened, Dunne’s dynamic becomes too one-sided and some of the substance gets lost in the ever-changing plot machinations. Ultimately, Gone Girl is an expertly crafted exercise, which deceives and captivates, forever content to live in its own cleverly designed and perpetually mistrusting universe where surfaces lie and words are even less credible.

Grade: B+