Three happy marriages, beginning to crack; three dissatisfied blondes; and, crawling out from the cracks, the thought of violent crime. Such is the substance of three new films, all derived from works by popular authors. The longest is “Gone Girl,” adapted by Gillian Flynn from her own novel; the most nattily dressed is “The Two Faces of January,” taken from Patricia Highsmith; and last, courtesy of Georges Simenon, comes “The Blue Room,” the Frenchest of the three, so much so that the plot relies on confiture de prunes.
“Gone Girl,” directed by David Fincher, starts with Nick (Ben Affleck)— in his own words, “a corn-fed, salt-ofthe-earth Missouri boy.” He used to live in New York and write for magazines, but the work dried up and he returned home, to the uneventful…
You're reading a preview of
The New Yorker (Digital) - 1 Issue, Oct-06-14