If you happened to have read Gillian Flynn's original novel of Gone Girl before you went to see David Fincher's filmic adaptation, the big twist probably came as no surprise. And yet, if you allowed yourself to give into Fincher's vision and Fincher's vision alone, Gone Girl's mid-point curveball presumably left you in a state of turmoil, as Ben Affleck's "cool girl" wife, Amy Dunne, is revealed to be a deceitful, scheming psychopath of the highest order, having framed her husband for murder. Gone Girl is a movie that thrives on its two-way structure - as the film alternate between conflicting perspectives, it's nearimpossible to know which of our untrustworthy characters is telling the truth. The genius of the twist, however - and this was inherent to Flynn's novel, too - stems from the placement of the big reveal. It's not at the very end of the movie at which the audience discover Amy's intentions, but half-way through. It's the kind of strange and unexpected narrative embellishment that Hitchcock would have loved.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
