Gone Girl, This is Where I Leave You, The Trip to Italy Reviews

Gone Girl

Dir. David Fincher

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Amy is gone.  Her husband, Nick, may or may not be responsible.  That's the basic premise of Gillian Flynn's neo-noir thriller Gone Girl, which became a sensation at airport bookstands everywhere since its 2012 debut.  The book was a biting (literally) and darkly funny take on relationships, and its cold, detached characters seemed like they'd be right at home in a David Fincher movie.  Ben Affleck plays Nick Dunne, co-owner of the bar aptly titled The Bar with his twin sister Margo (Carrie Coon).  When his wife (Rosamund Pike) goes missing, both the police and the media start to suspect he may be involved (not good considering Missouri's stance on the death penalty), and as the mystery spins deeper and more gets revealed, Nick's reputation goes from up, down, side-to-side, and everywhere in between - even within the audience in the theater.  Though I will be "that guy" and say that the book was better in many aspects, as far as I'm concerned, this was a fantastic adaptation of an amazing book.

Fincher reunites with Social Network score composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth to create a sinister, glossy-but-deadly atmosphere.  Ben Affleck seems to be perfect casting here, seeing as his career parallels Nick's in a way (in the character's own words, he's gone from liked to disliked to loved to hated...or something like that).  Just looking at the immense difference from Gigli-era Affleck to this rejuvenated Argo-era, his performance really rings true in so many ways.  Rosamund Pike is also great, but I have to admit, the flashback sequence where we see her first fall in love with Nick: really well shot, but I didn't exactly "buy" that the two were falling in love. I think it's less the acting and more because "love" doesn't often figure itself into David Fincher's filmography.

I'll stop here just to avoid spoilers, but if you're a hardcore fan of Flynn's book, don't fret, the film is very faithful with a few inconsequential changes, and even the oddball casting choices of Tyler Perry and Neil Patrick Harris didn't ruin the movie - in fact they were surprisingly good (though there were some snickers in my theater when Perry's face first popped up...no, this is not Tyler Perry Presents: Madea Goes Missing).  And if you've never read the book, hooray, you won't see what's coming and you'll probably have a better time at the theater.  Gone Girl is a wonderfully complex disassembling of modern day relationships in the middle of a Hitchcock film.  Fincher kept the essentials of the book, changed some things expertly, added some nice little moments, and made a 2.5 hour film without a single "check-your-watch" breath from the story.  See this film before it's gone from the theaters!

Rating: A-

This is Where I Leave You
Dir. Shawn Levy
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Based on the book of the same name, This is Where I Leave You is yet another 'dramedy' to come out this year, starring a heaping pile of headlining performers that just barely squeeze onto the poster.  The film opens with Judd Altman (Jason Bateman) walking in on his wife and boss "going at it" in their bed on their anniversary.  At the same time, Judd's dad dies, whose dying wish was for the whole family to have a 7-day sit-in shiva in his honor.  But of course, this dysfunctional family together in one house for the first time in years is bound for some wacky misadventures! The film tries to capture that "Little Miss Sunshine" vibe of an edgy-but-familial dramatic comedy, but in my mind fails miserably.

This is Where I Leave You may be this year's winner of the 'best cast-to-worst movie ratio.'  Just take a look at that poster and you'll see the generational laundry list of awesome actors, but I guess Shawn Levy (whose credits include Night at the Museum and The Internship) just didn't know how to handle the material.  It's just bad.  Every joke is cringe-worthy, and the drama is even worse.  Seeing Tina Fey cry made my brain confused; two of her major emotional scenes were trying to be completely earnest, but her SNL/30 Rock persona is just too great for it to feel authentic.  It's like when a Tom Cruise-type tries to play the "everyman" in a movie, or when a thirty-something plays a high school kid; excuse me for this harsh truth, but not every comedian can be a heavy-lifting dramatic actor.

I admit, I haven't read the book, but I know that Levy let his actors improvise many of their lines - if only they stuck to the page, maybe this wouldn't have been such an endurance test of smugness.  Every emotional beat felt unearned and therefore whenever Michael Giacchino's sweeping melody breezes through the film, it just hit a nerve (another talent wasted here: a pretty lackluster score from the typically-amazing composer).  You can leave this movie in the inevitable page 7 of Netflix's 'Romantic-Comedy-Based on a Book-Starring 10 Actors Who Deserve Better' section.

Rating: D

The Trip to Italy
Dir. Michael Winterbottom
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In 2010's The Trip, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon took a trip around Northern England, experiencing the country's finest cuisine, historical landmarks, and natural landscapes. Then, in 2014's The Trip to Italy, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon took a trip around Italy, experiencing the country's finest cuisine, historical landmarks, and natural landscapes.  Neither funny-man will deny that they're basically doing the same exact thing they did before, but when your dinner guests are as fun to be around as these two clowns, it can be worth it.  Unfortunately, the party tricks only go so far.

The thing is, The Trip to Italy, in a fashion maybe one step away from being a Hangover II-level copycat, just treads the same exact ground as before (well, not literally seeing as they're in Italy, but you get my metaphor).  The impressions (get ready for Pacino and Michael Caine again), the singing awkwardly to a female pop singer (ABBA shifts to Alanis Morissette), the marital infidelity (Coogan's loins were tested in the first, now it's Brydon's turn), the mid-life crisis, and so on and so forth.  It seems like a tired gag at this point.  Sure the locations are beautiful, with images that look like they came right off a postcard, and the pair have their chuckle-worthy moments, but I felt like the characters "conflicts" this time around weren't major enough to warrant this paid vacation.  Not as funny as the first, and the characters, slightly fictionalized versions of themselves, for whatever reason aren't as likable.  If you want to watch hilarious British people bickering about as they travel, I strongly recommend season 3 of An Idiot Abroad (aka, the best thing on Netflix), and leave this trip behind.

Rating: C+