Gone Girl has allowed this great technician of darkness a chance to lighten up, within acceptable parameters, which means it’s a film that wants to show you the best bad time it can whip up. It was adapted by Gillian Flynn, the writer of the original novel, and stars Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck as Amy and Nick Dunne, two married writers whose relationship, which began in a blaze of romance, is now hopelessly bogged down in bitterness. When Amy goes missing, the police start eyeing Nick with suspicion, and we, along with the TV news crews that descend on the town, soon realise he has something to hide.