‘Sadistic, forbidden pleasure’: why Gone Girl is my feelgood movie

The latest in our ongoing series of writers highlighting their go-to comfort films is a reminder of the dark joys that can be found in David Fincher’s devilish thriller

“When I think of my wife, I always think of the back of her head,” narrates Ben Affleck in the opening scene of Gone Girl, David Fincher’s 2014 adaptation of the bestselling thriller novel. “I picture cracking her lovely skull, unspooling her brains, trying to get answers to the primal questions of any marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? What have we done to each other?”

From the outset, Gone Girl probably sounds like quite an odd choice for a feelgood movie.