Director
David Fincher
Leading Actors/Actresses
Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike
Supporting Actors/Actresses
Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry
Genre
Psychological Thriller
Language
English
Awards
SAG Award, Rosamund Pike, Best Actress in a Leading Role; best screenplay, Gillian Flynn. The film received one Academy Award nomination (for Pike) and another sixty five wins in various regional movie awards.
Date of Release
September 2014
Producer
Aaron Milchan, Joshua Donen, Reese Witherspoon, Cean Chaffin.
Setting and Context
The film is set in Missourie, present day, after the Dunne's have been laid off from their jobs in New York City and have been forced to move for financial reasons.
Narrator and Point of View
There is no narrator, the point of view is shared by Nick Dunne and the team of investigators looking into his wife's disappearance.
Tone and Mood
Psychologically disturbing, frightening, surprising and suspenseful.
Protagonist and Antagonist
Nick is the protagonist, his wife Amy the antagonist.
Major Conflict
There is conflict in the Dunne marriage which comes to a head when Amy finds out about Nick's affair with a twenty year old in his writing class.
Climax
Amy, believed to have been murdered by NIck, is discovered alive and well in the Ozarks.
Foreshadowing
Amy finding out about Nick's affair with Andie foreshadows her plot to frame him for her murder as revenge.
Understatement
It is observed that for someone to devise a plot to frame their husband for their murder would require someone psychologically disturbed, but this is an understatement in that Amy is a combination of incredibly intelligent and completely sociopathic.
Innovations in Filming or Lighting or Camera Techniques
No specific examples.
Allusions
The situation that the Dunnes find themselves in alludes to the downturn in the markets and the recession that meant they were laid off and forced to move out of New York City.
Paradox
Amy and Nick begin the film as victim and perpetrator respectively but at the end of the film we realize that this is actually completely the opposite way around.
Parallelism
There is a parallel between Amy's sociopathic personality and the sociopathic personality that Rhonda Bonney assumes Nick to have when she first meets him.
