AUTHOR GILLIAN FLYNN TALKS ABOUT BRINGING “GONE GIRL” MYSTERY NOVEL TO LIFE ON THE BIG SCREEN
Author Gillian Flynn says Gone Girl movie adaptation will thrill you with its twists, turns and dark humor.
Upon its 2012 publication, Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl quickly became a massively popular, nail-biting summer bestseller that no one could put down.
The book, based on a seemingly perfect couple Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy (Rosamund Pike) becomes a thrilling mystery full of intrigue and secrets after Nick’s wife goes missing, leaving strong evidence of him as the prime suspect for not only her disappearance, but also for her possible death.
Of course, the story was ripe for the pickings of a Hollywood movie adaptation. And who better to write the screenplay than Flynn?
It’s not always a luxury an author gets, and although the task of adapting her beloved novel into script from was a daunting task, Flynn says she was put at ease after after meeting director David Fincher. She had no doubt that her story would be in perfect hands. “It was as if David interpreted what Gillian wrote and then that interpretation was put back through Gillian again on the page,” says Ben Affleck. “And during that process there was even more wit added, there was more sardonic stuff, and there were so many salient observations. It really fits into David’s work and has that distinctive combination of being at once funny and enlivening.”
With any popular book, Flynn was aware that keeping the important story elements was important, even though it was challenging to put into script form.
“The novel has a rather complicated and intertwining plot—and it’s not easy to streamline because the pieces are so linked together—so my biggest concern was respecting the plot while making sure the film didn’t become all engine,” she explains. “I wanted to make sure to find room for the nuances, the relationships and the characters—the dark humor and odd moments—because that’s where the creepy, toxic heart of the story lives.”
Which is why Flynn always envisioned Fincher (The Girl with The Dragon Tatoo, The Social Network) as her partner. “Even as I was writing the novel, there were certain scenes I pictured him filming—I could see them through his lens,” Flynn said about the director. “I knew he’d bring a great sense of place and I knew he’d capture the suspense and claustrophobia of the story. Everyone knows Fincher can do dread. But what I have always loved about his films is his dark bursts of humor. Gone Girl, for all its nastiness, has moments of humor, too, and I knew he’d bring those to the screen. I felt, too, that he wouldn’t turn Gone Girl into a rigid whodunnit, but would find room to explore what the story is really about, which is this marriage.”
As for the movie, Fincher is staying silent about the plot and its twists, some even for those who’ve read the book may be surprised by. “I think this movie is best enjoyed walking in cold,” he says. “People love watching a movie where they don’t know where it’s going to go next. They go to the movies to be surprised.”
GONE GIRL opens October 3 and stars Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neal Patrick Harris, Carrie Coon and Kim Dickens.
—Toni-Marie Ippolito
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