Any movie that chalks up a duration time of more than two hours is already biting off more than it can chew, not only from the overpriced popcorn buckets of movie-goers, but from the attention spans of common audience members as well.

This was Gone Girl’s immediate predicament clocking in at 149 minutes, but I would soon discern that this was Director David Fincher’s advantage over the other box office competitors. Although not as audacious of a time as last year’s three-hour-long Wolf of Wall Street, Gone Girl successfully managed to capture my always wandering attention with its two sections: the Prisoners-esque missing person thriller of the opening hour and the social satire it transitioned into by the second half.

Centered around what at first seemed to be the effervescent couple of Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) and Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike), the story progresses to identify with the underlying troubles in the life of the brilliant Amy. Her parents are authors, and they compose a series of stories centered around a perfected emulation of her own persona entitled: Amazing Amy. While she is constantly confronted with the reality of a perfect fictional, best-selling counterpart, she continually holds fast to the desire to escape from a pre-determined expectation of herself.

In the early minutes following Amy’s abrupt disappearance from their small-town home in Missouri, her husband Nick is rightfully distraught. Upon calling the police to report her disappearance, the overturned shattered glass table in their living room and blood stains initiate what would unfurl to be an unfortunate series of events for Nick. Namely, the ultimate public suspicion is that he was involved in murdering her.

The initial series of juxtaposed flashbacks and present day events were seamless, a wise technique on Fincher’s behalf, all of which aided in elevating the psychological drama to a well-deserved suspenseful pedestal.

The film is accompanied by an intelligently crafted dialogue, although at times it was melodramatic in its deliverance. As the non-linear storyline is propelled by both admirable and deceiving characters, I found myself clinging to the desire of wanting to distinguish between who to trust and who to rightfully doubt.

Yet, the entire casting of these characters may very well be the film’s greatest triumph. The feature delivers the ever-tasteful Tyler Perry as the lawyer that single-handedly resurrects Nick’s once respected reputation. Supported by a contagious charm, he was the haven for witty conversation while simultaneously offering the subtle humor that I quietly relished in, being the movie zealot I am.

To round out the satisfyingly memorable cast, Nick’s sister (Carrie Coon), was my personal favorite for her important but underrated voice of reason in long, chaotic scenes.

Even so, behind the well-casted dialogue lays a carefully embedded score, one that rises with the tension and falls with any complacency. One extremely disturbing and disgustingly gory scene, in particular, would have lost its eerie quality had the score failed to heighten the allied suspense. If I was ever gripping the theater chair, it had a direct correlation to the intensified reverberations in the theater’s surround sound—courtesy of the score’s intense orchestration.

But in all honesty, I am still having difficulties wrapping my head around the cinematic endeavor that was Gone Girl. The 149 minutes led my mind to a thoroughly confused yet satisfied state, a direction that no film prior to this has ever accomplished successfully.