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FEATURE
FEBRUARY 2015 JB Hi-Fi
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F ifty Shades of Grey was the
publishing phenomenon of 2012, but
female readers looking for something
with a little more style, substance and sting
that same year found it in Gillian Flynn’s novel
Gone Girl. This merciless thriller spent eight
weeks on the NewYork Times bestseller list
and sold over two million copies in its first
year of publication.
A caustic look at marriage, media
manipulation and public perception told from
the viewpoint of two unreliable narrators,
Flynn’s tale wedded the crime novel with the
psychological thriller, with a streak of dark
humour and a tantalising mystery at its core.
It also asked the question: “Can we truly
know somebody we love?” Gone Girl was the
perfect candidate for big screen treatment.
Flynn herself took on the daunting task of
adapting the book into a screenplay, which
was then filtered through the dark vision of
filmmaker David Fincher, resulting in a twist-
laden, nail-biting, visual tour de force.
Flynn admits the process of streamlining
her novel’s complex, intertwining plot with its
duelling narrators was an enormous challenge.
“I wanted to find room for the nuances, the
relationships and the characters – the dark
humour and odd moments – because that’s
where the creepy, toxic heart of the story
lives,” she explains.
She also saw the material as a perfect fit
for Fincher, given his atmospheric approach
to storytelling and flair for generating dread.
“Even when I was writing the novel, there
were certain scenes I pictured him filming – I
could see them through his lens,” Flynn notes.
“I knew he’d bring a great sense of place
and I knew he’d capture the suspense and
claustrophobia of the story.
“Gone Girl, for all its nastiness, has
moments of humour, too, and I knew he’d
Director David Fincher and author Gillian Flynn proved the perfect
match to bring Flynn’s bestseller GONE GIRL to the screen.
Ben Affleck with Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl