I've decided I'm going to write my impressions of films down in case I start to forget ill-thought out opinions on subjects of no consequence. The following contains huge spoilers for Gone Girl and Boyhood. Although as I'm the only person likely to read it and have already seen them, it shouldn't be much of a concern...
I thought the book of Gone Girl was OK. Pretty good. Loved the idea, and big sections were very grippy, mainly in the first half. I was interested to see how it would work as a movie already knowing the plot. I thought I'd seen somewhere that they had come up with a different twist for the movie that would mean it wouldn't matter if you'd already read the book you'd still be on edge, so I was looking forward to that. But as far as I could tell they hadn't.
Instead I thought the screenplay had signs that it was written by the novelist rather than someone coming at it fresh -- why was the mad abusive dad in it? No need. And the scene when Ben Affleck (I can't remember the character name. You know who I mean...) bumps into him in the police station? Crunchingly awkward.
Similarly that mall of zombies with the guns was still there, another one of the weaker unnecessary sections of the novel still there when a bad part of town would've done the job just as well. I would think the person who'd thought of them in the first place would be the only one interested in keeping them.
What was fun, though, was watching it with Jo, who hadn't read the book. She gets very involved and freaked out with suspenseful movies (I thought we might have had to sleep with the lights on for a week when I made her watch Misery...), so although I kinda knew what was going to happen it was nice to see it through her eyes. It was also interesting to see that a lot of the reactions to Ben Affleck's actions were the same ones I'd had when reading the book -- the writer/director did a good job of picking up those nuances.
Ben Affleck was perfect casting for the husband. Who better to play someone that on the surface appears affable but you know deep down (or maybe not that deep down) is a bit of a git? Amy was very good too. I had no idea who Rosamund Pike was, but have since seen a couple of movies she's also in, and was kinda stunned by how different she seemed. It's almost like she's some kind of professional person who can convincingly pretend to be entirely different people... It also seems she's taken over from Emily Watson as the person in every title I pick up at the DVD shop. Or was that Emily Blunt? One or the other seemed to be in everything for a while, but now it's Rosamund's turn.
The ludicrous psycho-dandy ex-boyfriend was also sadly still in the movie; a necessary evil, I suppose, if you're going to be true to the novel plot. Neil Patrick Harris played the fiendish fop, presumably because the number one choice, Peter Lorre, has been dead for 50 years.
At least they kept the wacky road trip adventures of Amazing Amy short compared to the book. Once she's been set up as a sociopath, who really cares what she did on the run? And also, if Amazing Amy was so smart how comes she got mugged by drunk rednecks and kidnapped by Niles Crane?
The thing that bothered me most about the book, was also in the film even though I'd hoped it might change. The end. Spooky and sinister some might say, but just too weak to me.
Why didn't he kill her?
Why didn't he?
Why wasn't he driven into such a rage that he did what she'd try to set him up for in the first place?
It just seems much more satisfying to me as an ending, although I was disturbed by the voices in my head shouting 'KILL HER! KILL. HER. KILLHER!' even though I knew it was an artistic rather than murderous intent behind them.
I loved Boyhood. I think I was almost on the edge of my seat as much for that as for Gone Girl: the fear of the bad boyfriends, the kids falling in with the wrong crowd, the dad being irresponsible and not showing up. By and large a lot of these things didn't happen, but I was still worried. LOVED the boy (see what I mean about forgetting character names?) when he was late-teens going into college, the innocent pretension and hope and openness of youth. Did Patricia Arquette win an Oscar? I should probably check that. She was good. Ethan Hawke did that thing he always does. Everything I stand for tells me I shouldn't like Ethan Hawke. And yet there's something about him I don't hate. Its kind of annoying.
It also reminded me of William Goldman on Hollywood movies and arthouse films: his distinction, briefly, is Hollywood films reassure, and arthouse makes you question. Deep down, Boyhood was Hollywood to the core with its happy ending.
Not that that's a bad thing...
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