Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck in Gone Girl, that releases on October 31

Upon its 2012 publication, Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl became that rare entity: a massively popular, nail-biting summer bestseller that was also the talk of the literary world.

The book was lauded not only for relentless suspense, but also for its narrative ingenuity and willingness to plumb the murkiest depths of human behaviour, grappling with the jagged lines between marriage and possession, public and private life, the lure of artifice and the glare of truth. Even in the crime fiction genre it stood out for its fusing of two stunningly unreliable, duelling narrators — the two halves of a torn marriage — who manipulate each other, tangling the reader in their webs of deceit.

The novel was a visceral, cinematic experience, but filled with pitfalls for a screen adaptation. So strong were the voices in the book it seemed unlikely anyone could ever adapt it as well as its author.

Fortunately, Flynn was up for taking on the daunting task and produced a screenplay that boiled the essence of her deftly plotted but deeply interior novel down into a skin-tight structure.

MERCILESS INSIGHTS MEET ATMOSPHERIC STORYTELLING

Then a synergy occurred between Flynn and David Fincher. The pairing of Flynn’s merciless insights with Fincher’s atmospheric storytelling made a potent mix with the drippingly dark humour of the story — and its skew on marriage, celebrity and the way we mould and remould our life stories.

“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 who plays the central role of Nick Dunne. “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.”

Though she was already enmeshed in the fabric of the story, Flynn had her work cut out for her. “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 of the adaptation. “I wanted to make sure to find room for the nuances, the relationships and the characters, the dark humour and odd moments because that’s where the creepy, toxic heart of the story lives.”

Fincher used the story’s nascent humour as a kind of dark marinade to soak into the visuals and performances. “People laugh in movies when they see something that is true,” says Fincher. “That’s what brings them out of their shells in the dark. If you then get the right people to carry the drama — and you encourage them to find what’s human about it all — that’s how you breathe life into it.”

For now though, Fincher believes the less said about the film’s plot perhaps the better. “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.”

he said, she said vs he experiences, she experiences

Nick Dunne arrives home on his fifth wedding anniversary to find the front door ajar, furniture strewn in the living room and not a single trace of his beautiful, semi-famous wife. Thus begins his instant public transformation from fortunate husband to man flailing in the media spotlight. Tagged as the proverbial suspect number one, the former town golden boy erupts in a series of lies, deceits and inappropriateness that does him no favours. His media persona is not pretty: he has disappointments... he has resentments... he has the kind of secrets that feed imaginations. But is Nick a killer?

Taking the alternately guarded and exposed role is Ben Affleck. Says Fincher of casting him: “Putting a cast together is like putting a basketball team together and Nick was the point guard. He has to feed the narrative. It’s a ‘he said, she said’ in the book, but it’s ‘he experiences, she experiences’ in the movie.”

Fincher also felt Affleck would have an affinity for a man who is sucked, rightly or wrongly, into the maelstrom of public fury. “Obviously Ben had the chops. But there was also something in him… something in the smile. Nick has to stand in front of Amy’s poster and be goaded into a reaction. I needed to find somebody who could do that with guile and charm,” explains the director. “Ben is extremely bright and funny and has got the complex humour of how Nick learns to manage his public image as the movie goes on, ultimately becoming a master. He understood the subtleties and could relate to the absurdity of the situation.”

marriage as a con game

So just who is Amy Dunne? That is the bottomless abyss into which actress Rosamund Pike descended. Pike recalls being drawn instantly towards the book’s inky, X-ray view of the underside of marital bliss. “I was quite intrigued by this idea of marriage as a con game — the idea that we’re all selling a version of ourselves,” she muses. “And Amy is such a remarkable creation. It fascinated me that she is always performing, perhaps in part because it points back to the life of an actor. The challenge of being Amy is that nothing that happens with her is quite what it seems on the surface.”

That was both the challenge and the allure. She continues: “In playing Amy, I get to explore so many different aspects of the feminine brain. There are scenes where Amy is playing two different things to two different people in the same room — and the audience has to see both.”

Pike notes that Amy’s contradictions were electrifying to explore. “She can be easy-going, sexy and relaxed, but then there are all these other currents running underneath. It’s all very true to our lives right now, isn’t it? We all are editing a version of ourselves it often seems.”

Among the possible suspects in Amy’s disappearance are former boyfriends, including Desi Collings, Amy’s long-suffering ex from prep school who, though breathtakingly wealthy, has continued to write her lovelorn letters. Taking the role is How I Met Your Mother star Neil Patrick Harris.

Like so many, Harris was stunned by the novel. “It was one of my favourite books of all time,” he says. “I loved that Gillian was able to write so perceptively from the point of view of both sexes. It was also among the most unsettling books I’ve read. I felt it really broke down the myths of what relationships are and this whole fairytale ideal that partners can always share everything.”

The physical world of Gone Girl mirrors the internal states of its characters — or vice-versa — with its portrait of a recession-era America full of comforting facades that, upon closer inspection, are fraying at the seams. The result is a kind of noir Americana, a darkly hypnotic angle on displaced American dreams. Fincher crafted this world of both strangeness and intimacy with a team he has relied on repeatedly including cinematographer Jeff Cronenworth, production designer Donald Graham Burt, costume designer Trish Summerville and editor Kirk Baxter.

keep it SIMPLE yet COMPLEX

Filming took place in Cape Girardeau, a quaint Missouri River town a little over 100 miles outside St Louis, which stands in for Nick’s downturned hometown of Carthage. Donald Burt notes that the location offered a lot of advantages.

“Everything about Cape Girardeau was right — from its mix of different levels of economics and period architectures from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s to its sprawling malls to having the river right there as an anchor,” says the designer. “The people there were also so kind and so helpful. It shone a light on their remarkable generosity.”

Practical locations were commandeered to hone in on this portrait. Burt explains: “With David it’s always about restraint but also finding things that are just a little bit off centre. The idea is both ‘Let’s keep it simple’ and yet ‘Let’s keep it complex’. We also make a concerted effort to constantly question ourselves; David often asks: ‘Do you think the characters would be in this place?’ And we explore things in that way, always through the characters.... What strikes me most about David’s films is that there are so many elements that only hit you peripherally on first viewing, then later really sink in. It’s so often not the element that’s right in front of your face that is key and that is his unique artistry.”

GONE GIRL: AT A GLANCE

To become Nick Dunne, Ben Affleck studied the cases of those accused and convicted of killing their wives. He paid particular attention to Scott Peterson, an American convict on death row accused of murdering his wife and unborn child.

nRosamund Pike drew inspiration from Nicole Kidman’s performance in To Die For and Sharon Stone’s in Basic Instinct to play Amy. She also researched the body language and cold demeanour of John F Kennedy Jr’s wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.

nThis is the first film in which Affleck has done a full-frontal nude scene. Reason? To fit in with director David Fincher’s brief that he wanted Gone Girl to be like a European movie, “warts and all”.

nWhile Reese Witherspoon, Charlize Theron, Natalie Portman, Emily Blunt, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde, Abbie Cornish and Julianne Hough were considered for the part of Amy Dunne, Brad Pitt was in contention for Nick Dunne’s role.

Who should star in a Bolly remake of Gone Girl? Tell t2@abp.in