Gone Girl

After a busy week office wise  and then a governors' meeting on Saturday which ended only just after  lunch, it was good to be persuaded by mrs maytrees and maytrees min immediately after returning home on Saturday afternoon, to accompany them to the film "Gone Girl" at the HMV Curzon cinema Wimbledon.

The HMV Curzon cinema is always a good venue for films. Thankfully it escaped the near cessation of HMV and the new HMV owners retained the cinema upstairs at the still going but presumably hard hit by the internet, HMV shop. My understanding is that prior to the financial changes affecting HMV caused presumably by the internet and the likes of Amazon, the idea was to have Curzon cinemas upstairs at most HMV stores. In the event the experimental Curzon upstairs at Wimbledon is I think the only HMV Curzon in the country.

Anyway even though we opted for a 2:30 pm showing on a wet Saturday we were far from being the only viewers. One of the positives of the HMV Curzon concept is that one is able to take into the cinema  from their interesting bar a hot drink or  glass of wine to enjoy with the film. Possibly this arrangement applies generally now but certainly was not applicable to mainstream cinemas at least those which I have visited, fairly recently.

Now to the film: the 140 minutes+ viewing time is slightly longer than the usual 100 minutes that sometimes applies to commercial films but we were riveted through out. The story was intriguing with the theme concerning the question of how well do you really know your wife?

Nick Dunne played by Ben Affleck  was the husband relentlessly seeking his beautiful wife Amy who disappeared early on, excellently played by Rosamund Pike. Nick's questing for his wife continued even after being charged with her murder.Tanner Bolt the American Lawyer really well portrayed by Tyler Perry advises  Nick on how best to endeavour to  escape the still applicable death penalty and one is left wondering what will happen next.

At the end of the film various thoughts occurred to me in no particular order:

i. A brilliantly acted and written story.
ii Lawyers are generally not popular and it took St Thomas More from 1535 to 1935  to be canonised a saint - rather longer than most other good men or women.
iii. Guns are too easily available in the USA and I am thankful that they are outlawed in England  and not usually even held by the UK police over here.
iv. The wealth of all of the principal parties in the film was almost too much.
v. The chief American policewoman on the case played her role really well which  added enormously to the intrigue.

A slightly bitty review above but giving more detail of the film to make this blog post more readable might give too much of  the plot away to the detriment of anyone wishing to see Gone Girl for themselves.