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"Gone Girl" is here, and it was worth the wait.
Director David Fincher and screenwriter Gillian Flynn (adapting her best-selling novel) craft a masterfully dark and twisty thriller that combines crime drama, conspiracy thriller, media satire and a harsh examination of marital relationships. Ben Affleck is powerful as Nick, the husband who searches for his missing wife and is quickly labeled the prime suspect. But the stunner here is Rosamund Pike, who's dynamic as the wife, Amy, introduced in flashbacks. Fincher's work at ratcheting tension and playing on audience expectations is better here than in his past thrillers — and that's saying something when you look at the list: "Seven," "Fight Club," "Panic Room," "Zodiac" and "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."
The other standout this weekend opens at the Tower Theatre: "20,000 Days on Earth," a richly observed and stylized documentary that profiles rocker Nick Cave. The movie follows Cave on a "typical" day, from home to studio to perfomance hall — but within the artifice of that setting, Cave engages in real dialogue about music, stardom and the artistic impulse.
The rest of this week's art-house slate features: "Bird People," a likeably loopy French tale of a Silicon Valley designer (Josh Charles) and a Paris hotel maid (Anaïs Demoustier) seeking to escape their routine lives; and "Hector and the Search for Happiness," an uneven comedy-drama about a naive psychiatrist (Simon Pegg) going on a worldwide trip to unearth the secret of being happy.
The other big studio entry this weekend is "Annabelle," a howlingly dumb horror thriller that's a disappointing prequel to the superior "The Conjuring." This follows a young married couple (Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton), circa 1970, who are terrorized by a demonic doll. The movie requires too many leaps of logic, and forgiving idiotic behavior by its characters, to be enjoyably scary.
In time for the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there's the Mormon-themed adventure drama "16 Stones." It follows three friends, all from a Missouri Mormon community in 1838, seeking artifacts that will prove their faith to non-believers — with a pair of nasty crooks on their trail. The pacing is pokey, but the leads are charming enough.
Another new movie with a religious basis — the apocalyptic "Left Behind" — was not screened for critics.