That’s marriage.

Gone Girl - 4/5

I think Ben Affleck was approximately perfect in his casting here. That ‘nice’ smile that comes to define him in the movie I think also defines him in real life. He is both likeable and don’t-wanna-like-him. So when the movie asks you to believe whatever they want you to believe about him, you’re ready to pull the trigger in whichever direction. He is just as likely a wife-murderer as he is not. Whichever way, he’s hiding something. It’s just in this case, he’s hiding how much he didn’t like his wife. How happy that she’s gone. And that was one of the best bits about the movie – when people chide you for not feeling how you’re ‘supposed’ to feel, but you don’t know how you’re supposed to feel because you don’t feel that way. So you have to pretend. Pretend to be happy, pretend to be in love, pretend to be sad. I do think the movie is a clever little analogue to marriage – the media circus just being the eyes that others put on your relationship, ready to judge you, ready to tell you you’re a bad husband or wife, or a failure. The investigation just being the way we manipulate the story to shine a better light on ourselves. And so it becomes easy to trap yourself in the pretend of it all because you don’t want to be hated. You want to come out on top. You’d rather lose yourself than lose.