What’s Worth Watching: Femme Fatale

Gone Girl (Saturday, June 20, 8/7c, HBO)

Reading Gillian Flynn’s riveting suspense novel Gone Girl, everyone knew it would eventually end up as a movie, although many wondered how they’d sustain the book’s mystery with its alternating points of view and wickedly calculated reveals. Director David Fincher does well by Flynn’s own adaptation of her breakthrough best-seller in this hit from last fall. He’s aided immeasurably by the enigmatic performance of Oscar-nominated Rosamund Pike as the mysterious Amy, whose disappearance as the movie opens throws suspicions on her long-suffering husband, Nick (Ben Affleck at his most sheepishly sympathetic).

Hitchcock would have loved this icy blonde, and he’d surely have enjoyed taking a crack at a classic “wrong man” property like this, which takes a hairpin turn midway through as we realize what the story’s really about. No spoilers here, although the power of Flynn’s imagination is such that even for those who knew what was coming from having read the source material, it was fun putting ourselves through it again. And maybe again and again, now that Gone Girl is making its pay-cable debut.