Shaadi on the rocks

Gone Girl

‘What are you thinking?’ ‘How are you feeling?’ ‘What have we done to each other?’ These opening questions from the much-talked about thriller Gone Girl by director David Fincher are likely to draw you into the film immediately. The film, as it unravels presents a rather edgy version of marriage as we know it. For most part, it is a riveting watch with an impressive performance by Rosamond Pike who plays Amy Elliott Dunne to Ben Affleck’s Nick Dunne.
Based on Gillian Flynn’s bestseller by the same name, this story of a writer couple that finds its love tested at all levels when they move to Missouri, is the most chilling and yet, in a way, most realistic portrayal of the myriad emotional undercurrents in a marriage. In this roller-coaster fairy-tale wedding gone wrong, each and every vow is put through high wattage pressure test. Small everyday skirmishes and hurts –Nick’s decision to move back to Missouri without consulting Amy or Amy giving away the majority of the money from her trust to her parents who had created Brand Amy and the trust among others– contribute in a significant way to their marital down-slide.
Their reasons for drifting apart are the standard couple issues—personality differences, familial alignments, cheating, inability to reach out to each other—but the reasons that keep them together are rather unusual.
The performances are superlative and the screenplay is almost impeccable except that it in this deliciously twisted ‘he says- she says’ marital story the pace does slacken for a bit but then your interest in their fate never diminishes. Without giving it all away, one could surmise that it is a happy ending, well almost.
The film, that has been called a marital thriller, has gone on to become director David Fincher’s highest grossing film in the United States. This, despite its chilling and somewhat dark take on marriage. Contrast that with India’s obsession with band baaja baraat and all things marriage and yet the only version that we can handle is one that follows the boy meets girl, falls in love and lives happily ever after. Most films that have struck a discordant note about marriage have not been greeted with the same degree of enthusiasm as their happier, more sanitised, photo-shopped versions. Remember Silsila and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna? Despite a star-studded cast, dollops of gloss and some noteworthy performances, the films didn’t exactly have the auds warm up to it. Art films, now better known as multiplex films, have perhaps had better luck with such tricky subjects. A while ago, Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding took the shine off the big-fat wedding template weaving into the story a shocking reveal about an uncle,(a sexual predator who sexually abuses a young niece ably played by Rajat Kapoor and Shefali Shah). But then the film was more bitter-sweet than dark-as-sin. More recently, it was The Lunchbox, a story about finding love outside of one’s loveless marriage that touched a chord with the viewers. But it was almost an idyllic take on an extra-marital affair.
As for Gone Girl, the urbane multiplex audience warmed up to it even before the India release and its 60 per cent occupancy in Mumbai suggests that perhaps, finally, tastes are a changing. Good news, surely for film-makers who want to push the envelope with cutting edge experimental marriage sagas.
After the saccharine sweet stories, the audience finally seems to be ready for a taste of shaadi on the rocks.