Rosamund Pike is the definition of Apex Mountain here.
Fincher's own apex was decided to be Social Network, the best movie of the decade for one host though the answer changes with every rewatch, which another disputes, with Benjamin Button the one nobody understands because it is not perverted; this was emphatically not Neil Patrick Harris's apex because he sucked in it.
Mountain Dew might be at its apex: amid the junk food of the makeover montage, mini donuts, a hamburger, Coke, Cheetos and Fritos, the camera lingers on the Dew poured into a glass so the spit is visible with the bottle still in frame, and Amy's satisfied sip signals she will let no slight go unpunished; Cape Girardeau (transcribed 'Cape Gerardo'), Missouri, is definitely at its apex.
Affleck studied men accused of killing their wives, especially Scott Peterson; Affleck lost a bet that Fincher would not notice a tiny lens change; the bar is now a real restaurant in Cape Girardeau, Missouri; Affleck's first on-screen full frontal, really a side view; 500 hours shot over a 100-day shoot; Pike and Neil Patrick Harris rehearsed the sex scene alone for two hours; Pike gained and lost 13 pounds three times; take 18 of the head-against-the-wall scene left Pike seeing stars; Gillian Flynn felt she had 'killed feminism' after the gender criticism; Reese Witherspoon held the rights before Fincher moved on
Affleck researched several men accused and convicted of killing their wives, paying particular attention to Scott Peterson, awkward reading for anyone married to him; on set he changed a camera lens setting an almost indiscernible amount and bet a crew member that Fincher would not notice, and lost when Fincher brought it up.
Asked whom Fincher identifies with more, the answer is Amy; asked about Gillian Flynn, the answer is Nick, offered as exactly why the movie works: there is a Nick and there is an Amy.
The bar is now a real restaurant exactly where it was filmed in Cape Girardeau (transcribed 'Cape Gerardale'), Missouri; this was Affleck's first full frontal on screen, which Fincher wanted to feel like a European movie, warts and all, though the hosts quibble that it is side-frontal or side-back, compare it to a Batman comic given his Batman prep, and recall Sidedick.com as one of five finalist names for the Ringer.
Fincher shot an allegedly incredible 500 hours of material over the 100-day shoot, five hours a day; by Rosamund Pike's account she and Neil Patrick Harris spent two hours alone on set rehearsing their sex scene at Fincher's request, with an unverified report that she practiced with a children's doll (transcribed 'Adora the Explorer'); she gained and lost 13 pounds three times, hamburgers and malts to gain it, four hours a day with a boxer and five miles of running to lose it.
Around take 18 of Nick bashing her head against the wall, Pike literally saw stars and felt she had a minor concussion; the hosts were 100 percent shocked by that late moment and read it as purposeful: Nick is not off the hook, he is a bad guy rather than a good one, they will stay together forever with something toxic between them, and you should not feel pure sympathy for him.
Flynn reportedly admitted the gender-related critical response affected her: she hovered under her covers saying she had killed feminism and had not meant to, then got over it.
Flagged early as half-assed internet research: Reese Witherspoon obtained the film rights, decided to produce and play Amy, then after meeting Fincher somehow let him talk her out of the part rather than insisting on it.
Casey Wilson is the pick, named by two hosts; Rosamund Pike also goes for it a couple of times, ratcheting up maybe ten percent too much in the 'I'm the cunt you married' speech; a Neil Patrick Harris award for why the fuck are you in this movie is invented on the spot and awarded to Neil Patrick Harris.
The shock value of the big twist, which cannot be recaptured on rewatch; the internet outrage reaction to the movie; the brutality of the Desi murder; Neil Patrick Harris's performance; Wesley Morris's negative review; Bill Simmons saying Neil Patrick Harris was bad
The big twist has aged worst in one sense: in the theater, where a guy audibly went 'oh, shit', it was the best part if you had not read the book, and that shock cannot be recaptured on a tenth viewing, though you appreciate the details in a new way, like rereading Goblet of Fire knowing Voldemort rises from the cauldron, which is the whole point of the podcast; it belongs in both categories.
The internet reacting to the movie has aged badly: one of the first cases of people pulling other things into a piece of art and arguing outrage over it, as now with the new Tarantino movie, when to one host it is a movie about a crazy lady who framed her husband and came back; another counters that using criticism to understand society through art is reasonable and happens on this podcast, and it was the 'how dare you, this is irresponsible' tone that grated.
Gillian Flynn has engaged the criticism of the story's sexual politics and of Amy, as she did when the book came out; her boiled-down response is that women can be murderous and violent too, anyone can be a psycho, an inversion the hosts find compelling; neither Nick nor Amy is a good person, and Nick's cheating does not entitle her to frame him, kill Desi and frame him for rape, or bring a child into that household, the baby being perhaps the most fucked-up thing she does.
The Desi murder is brutal and has aged worst for one host from a rewatchability standpoint; in the book she drugs him with sleeping pills and kills him off the page with a knife grabbed in the kitchen rather than a box cutter, less premeditated and violent, and Patrick Fugit's line asking how she got her hands on a box cutter is relished.
Neil Patrick Harris sucks, capital S, for one host: a sitcom actor with no chemistry, out-acted in his scenes and not a Fincher actor, with the other How I Met Your Mother guy Josh Radner (as transcribed), Zach Braff or Tobey Maguire suggested instead; others argue the lack of chemistry is the point, that he evinces weak, privileged, waspy cornball well, and that Amy is supposed to outclass him.
Wesley Morris's Grantland review is nominated, with one host eager to make fun of him: brilliant, sophisticated criticism nominated for a National Magazine Award, with a bad opinion inside it, that the movie is not good; another plans to argue with him for an hour at Rembrandt's wedding after three drinks.
In the formal casting what-ifs, most having been covered already, the one new item is that Fincher cast Emily Ratajkowski on a recommendation from Ben Affleck, which the hosts find the funniest thing they have heard and worth a shout-out, joking about hiring her as a football writer to cover the NFC.
Jon Hamm was going to play Nick but Matthew Weiner would not let him out of his contract for the last season of Mad Men, the way The Office accommodated Ed Helms filming The Hangover at night; the part could have ignited Hamm's career as Don Draper in a bad marriage, though whether Hamm would have done the side dick is called the only question that matters.
The case against Hamm is that the role needs innate likability, and nobody ever simply liked Don Draper even if Hamm is loved in The Town and Baby Driver; the counter is that Nick is supposed to seem rationally likable yet somehow repellent, which Hamm could swing.
The relationship we have with Hamm is with Don Draper, while with Affleck it is with Affleck the public person; a Hamm version would still have been a good movie, because the film is about marriage, what women and men say they want, stardom and the media, bigger than Fincher's narcissism explanation; another voice thinks Hamm would have been good but loves that Affleck did this at the point of his completed comeback.
Tom Cruise as Nick Dunn is floated, with one voice calling the idea amazing, and rejected by the rest: he is too short and lacks Affleck's bulk and wide shoulders, you need to believe Nick can keep up with Amy, you need to see his belly exposed when he rolls over, and nobody can picture Cruise sitting down for Battlefield 3; Clooney fifteen years earlier is possible but a little too skinny.
Reese Witherspoon obtained the film rights intending to produce and play Amy, met Fincher and somehow gave the part up; the hosts cannot picture her riding Neil Patrick Harris covered in blood, finding her too earnest, open and likable to go dead-eyed the way Amy requires.
Other names reported for Amy: Charlize and Natalie Portman, both of whom would have been interesting though Charlize carries baggage as an actress, Emily Blunt, Rooney Mara whom Fincher had just worked with, Olivia Wilde, and strangest of all Dancing with the Stars' Julianne Hough, who got far down the road before her bid at a serious acting career stalled.
Fincher wanted an actress with a Faye Dunaway in Chinatown persona, someone who has experienced avenues of pain no one can articulate; he settled on Rosamund Pike because at 35 she could pass for 29 or 40, she was an only child like Amy, and after four or five of her movies he had never got a beat on her, an opacity he found interesting, when the natural move would have been Charlize.
Fincher has always had an eye for unproven, on-the-cusp talent, Pitt in Seven, Eisenberg and Rooney Mara in The Social Network, Mahershala Ali and Taraji Henson in Benjamin Button; the hosts expected Pike's career to go somewhere else after her Oscar nomination, and before this her notable role was Jack Reacher, an embarrassing part two years earlier.
Asked whether baggage with a real celebrity hurts a part like this, the answer is that for Amy you need to be totally confused about the person, the opposite of the Affleck character whom you must root for implicitly, so somebody you have never seen before makes it scarier. — Shea Serrano
Pike's biggest role until then was Jane Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, the book that turns up in the bookshop where they have sex.
