Here’s the thing about Gone Girl – it’s adapted from the book by Gillian Flynn, but Flynn herself adapted it for director David Fincher, and she made some undisclosed changes. So, even if you think you know what to expect, chances are, you’re wrong. Now, that’s a great way to market a movie – keep people guessing – but with every new TV spot and trailer that finds its way onto the internet, the risk of revealing too much of a story increases significantly. At least, that’s always been the case for other filmmakers. For Fincher, and for Gone Girl, it’s a strategy that might just pay off.
When his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) disappears on their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) finds himself at the centre of a huge media storm, and is the prime suspect in her assumed murder. As the fundamental cracks in their picture perfect marriage are gradually revealed, it becomes clear that, perhaps, nobody truly is the person they project to the world, or to those closest to them.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly recently, Rosamund Pike revealed that the inspiration for much of her character was actually the late Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy – the wife of John F. Kennedy Jr:
“There’s not much out there about her. You just see those pictures of her hiding her face. The way she moved – I used quite a lot of that body language and mood. She’s the dream girl. That’s what Amy was for Nick. She’s the one you can’t get out of your head because she’s perfect.”
The main hook is that the story almost has two narratives – his and hers – and if we never really know where the truth lies, then we can never really know which tale to trust. This delicious duality has been a big factor in the preview campaign for the film, and as promotion efforts heat up, it just gets more and more intriguing. This latest TV spot plays into that well – giving us just enough new footage to keep us interested, and just enough of a hint at Amy’s own duality to cast doubt on the assumptions drawn from the previous previews – which cast Nick in a damning light.
You could say (and I would venture it would make Fincher smile if you did) that this preview campaign almost mirrors the media circus we see every time we turn on the news – that with different sides to each story, we can paint any picture we like about any individual with just the right angle on the facts. Whether or not that factors into the story of Gone Girl as a whole will be revealed on October 3rd, 2014.