Evolutionary marriage?

GONE GIRL
Director David Fincher
145 mins. Cert. 18

Critics highly praise this film, but actually it constitutes a pernicious attack on traditional marriage.

Don’t go and see it, there is foul language and a scene of horrific sexual violence. Nevertheless, it requires comment because of its popularity and the influence its outlook will have on many people.

It is essentially an edge-of-your-seat thriller. After a man (Ben Affleck) comes home to find his wife (Rosamund Pike) gone and signs of violence in the house, gradually the police come to suspect him of her murder. Actually his wife has found out that he is having an affair and has set out in a hugely complex and vicious way to frame him. The drama is played out under the full glare of US media interest and its ability to sway public opinion (media far more powerful than the police).

The message of the film is that marriage is about a battle between two different species – the male pursuing self-gratification and the woman, control. She wins. Marriage is only to be entered into by naïve fools like the neighbour the wife befriends and manipulates to confirm her story.

Knock-out blow

Marriage is not for intelligent people – and here comes the knock-out blow - because they are too untrustworthy and capable of inflicting pain to ever bind yourself too them permanently. You can never be certain of what your partner is thinking. At that level, the film touches the reality of Jeremiah 17.9 ‘The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked – who can know it?’. With messages like this in our culture, it is surely only Christianity which can save marriage and family life and therefore a stable society.