How the filming of Gone Girl affected a small river town, and the life of a girl who grew up there.

by Paige Pritchard

The filming of a major Hollywood picture might be the most exciting thing to happen in my hometown during my lifetime.

Too bad I missed it.

The Fan

My relationship with Gillian Flynn’s dark thriller Gone Girl can best be described as tumultuous. I was first introduced to the book after being hired on at the public library in my college town, Columbia, MO. This happened around the middle of 2012, during the height of the book’s popularity. In one of my training sessions, a fellow library associate picked the book from the “Hot Reads” shelf and pointed to the pink letters on its minimalistic black cover–“This one’s been flying off the shelves,” she said. “We have multiple copies and the wait list is still hundreds of names long.”

I spent a year working at the library and somehow never ended up reading Gone Girl. I remember curiously eyeing the book every time I pulled it for an anxious patron, toying with the idea of adding my name to its lengthy hold list. I probably would have ended up checking out a copy had I not left that job, and Columbia, to pursue big city life in Chicago.

At that point, I had lived in Missouri for all 24 years of my life. Most of these were spent in Cape Girardeau, a town of about 37,000 located on the banks of the Mississippi River and a central hub for the rural Bootheel region. I was more than ready to leave that area, with its small town frivolities, and the state behind. Bear in mind, small town frivolities don’t usually include Hollywood casting calls and Ben Affleck buying a membership to the local gym.

Bear in mind, small town frivolities don’t usually include Hollywood casting calls and Ben Affleck buying a membership to the local gym.

The official announcement that David Fincher’s Gone Girl would film in Cape Girardeau, MO, came around the middle of summer 2013. I was well into my city girl routine by then–taking the “L” to work, hitting up the bars in Wicker Park, and snacking on trendy foods like bacon donuts and bacon parfaits and baconned bacon from the bacon bar. Hip urban activities and such.

But I was reminded of Missouri as news slowly trickled in about the filming. Blurry iPhone photos of Neil Patrick Harris reached me through my friends’ Instagrams. The local paper even set up an entire blog about the event. Still, I was generally able to ignore the hype. There was too much city stuff happening to me to pay attention anyway.

By the time I found myself eating a vegan corndog in the park at Pitchfork Music Festival, my Missouri self was all but a distant shadow. I was finally the city girl I had always wanted to be: I was working at a legitimate publication, I had signed up for a comedy-writing course with Second City, I’d bought a pair of high waisted jorts and was on the e-mail list at my favorite taco bar. It was all falling into place and there was no turning back.

Three months later I was living with my parents in Cape Girardeau.

The Book

Stuff happens. People spend money too fast. They fill out job applications too slow. And a lot, a lot of people (specifically between the ages of 18-25) move back in with their parents. Don’t judge me.

I moved back home around November. As a result, I only have one story from the set of Gone Girl. In a bittersweet turn of events, I returned to Cape the very week filming ended. Yet again, I had just missed the excitement surrounding this enigmatic book and soon-to-be-film.

I was, however, able to catch a quick bit of filming during what was possibly the last pleasant afternoon of last fall.

Here’s a picture I snapped of the set:

The crew is filming a scene at “The Bar”, a local watering hole owned by Ben Affleck’s character. The set is down on the street, along with some lighting rigs and various wires. The rest of the people, that crowd of 100+ bystanders, are all gathered to watch Ben Affleck walk in and out of the building. Again, and another time, then three more times, and so on.

After literally 45 minutes of watching this I realized it was a Thursday afternoon. Didn’t these people have jobs? Had the civic government declared it “Gone Girl” Day and let everyone off? It was absurd. Everyone was there. I saw my third-grade math teacher and ran in to my lab partner from freshman biology. There on the steps of the Cape Girardeau courthouse I participated in a small high school reunion, all within view of Ben Affleck.

It took this event for me to realize just how obsessed with Gone Girl my hometown had become. And not in a bad way, at least not according to the film’s producer Ceán Chaffin. STL Today interviewed Chaffin on filming in Cape, and she only had good things to say.

“We’re not special. We’re just making movies, and it can be disruptive of people’s lives. But people are so nice here. They don’t even have fences around their yards! They’re proud of their community, and they’re interested in what we’re doing.”

Despite being under the impression that fences were so passé, reading that quote made my heart swell with hometown pride. I decided I needed to read Gone Girl, and soon. Because it was something I wanted to brag about. And given my status at the time–jobless, broke, and living with my parents–I was desperate for something to be proud of.

I stole my copy of Gone Girl from my grandma during a round of Dirty Santa, a Christmas tradition in my family. To be fair, I was the one that brought the present in the first place, and I think Grandma was much happier with the afghan she ended up with.

I’ll admit I’ve never been a big fan of thrillers. I blame it on mistakenly reading too much Dan Brown at an early age. But by the time I cracked the spine on Gone Girl, I’d built up a strong positive bias toward it. It’s set in Missouri, written by a Show-Me-State native who is a woman. What’s not to love?

Female writers are not as rare as you would think in the crime, mystery and thriller genre. You’re just as likely to see a title by Janet Evanovich or Mary Higgins Clark on a hot reads list, as you are a book by Lee Child or James Patterson. And lest we forget, it was a woman, Agatha Christie, who helped popularize modern mystery literature.

Consider, though, that these authors are some of the biggest names in the genre, and there are still many female mystery writers out there not getting the attention they deserve. And remember how J.K. Rowling chose to pen her thriller, The Cuckoo’s Calling, under the male pseudonym Robert Galbraith. According to The Guardian, her editor, upon finding out the true origin of the author’s name after reading the manuscript, said “I never would have thought a woman wrote that.”

So women can reach big-name status in mystery, thriller, and crime fiction, but it isn’t often that they vault to sudden success the way Flynn did in 2012 with Gone Girl. I can’t speak to the causes behind the book’s instant popularity, but after reading it, I can say with confidence that it deserved the recognition.

Gone Girl is an engrossing work. Flynn weaves a labyrinthine plot, using unreliable narrators and nonlinear storytelling to both reveal and conceal the book’s mystery. I struggled at points with relating to the characters, until I realized that that they were all pretty horrible people. But that’s the thing–Flynn’s characters are brilliant, intelligent, and flawed in the most intriguing fashion. Flynn addressed this in her recent Reddit AMA when someone asked about the prevalence of immoral characters in her fiction:

“I’ve always said I don’t mind if a character isn’t likable as long as he or she is understandable. Do I get why these people are doing the awful things they do?”

Those who’ve read the book know that the two main characters, Nick and Amy Dunne, do their fair share of awful things. Still, in between all the gritty details, their characters offer remarkable insight. As out-of-work writers turned victims of the recession, the couple’s problems bring macro issues to a micro level.

And then there’s the feminist manifesto that occurs halfway through the story. The titular “cool girl” segment had me head nodding along in baffled agreement. As Guardian writer Bim Adewunmi asserts, the “cool girl” is similar to the “manic pixie dream girl” trope, in that many guys dream about her, many girls want to be her, but she doesn’t actually exist. The rant could easily stand alone in publication, but fits perfectly in context of the book’s complex characterization.

For me, though, the best part of the book was its setting. The fictional town of North Carthage could easily be Cape Girardeau, if Cape had run into more trouble during the recession. In reality our little river city isn’t nearly as run down as its fictional counterpart. Our mall is still open. Many of the houses are occupied. And though our Proctor & Gamble plant does produce paper products, it’s still in business, unlike the doomed Blue Book factory in Gone Girl.

But a quick drive through parts of town will reveal empty storefronts and aging buildings. The space they used for “The Bar” hasn’t held a healthy business in years, turning over various cafes and boutiques until the production company finally rented it out. Even now a “for lease” sign sits in its window, nestled beneath the fictional business sign painted for the set.

All the Midwest small-town tropes are there, including the middle-aged gossip, the conservative politics, and the casseroles.

The book offered familiar scenes–a morning spent drinking coffee by the river, a cheap motel in the Ozarks, and a quick tour through Mark Twain’s birth place. All the Midwest small-town tropes are there, including the middle-aged gossip, the conservative politics, and the casseroles. It’s enough to make me wonder if Gillian Flynn actually had Cape in mind when writing it.

I could draw similarities and differences between the two towns forever, but the fact is Cape Girardeau isn’t North Carthage. North Carthage is just a fictional town similar to Cape. David Fincher just happened to set up shop here, along with a whole host of beautiful movie stars. And the film editors will probably cut most of the Cape shots anyway. Still, we plan to milk it for all it’s worth.

The Movie

“Have you seen the Gone Girl trailer?”

The question echoed throughout businesses and households.

“The Gone Girl trailer is out, what do you think?”

Opinions were mixed.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Looks dark.”

“I don’t get the music.”

“What if it makes Cape look bad?”

Never did the idiom “Talk of the town” apply more than when iTunes released the Gone Girl trailer April 14. I watched it with my coworkers and posted it to Facebook. I was even late to the game, as my newsfeed was already covered with links from fellow townies and local relatives. That night I huddled my parents around my laptop and showed them the clip. I followed this with a brief crash course on David Fincher’s filmography, blatantly overusing the word “auteur” as I YouTubed my favorite scenes from Fight Club.

As one of the leftover perks of the filming, everyone in Cape is now a cinephile. This is great news for a movie buff like myself. I don’t always agree with my fellow residents on subjects like politics or social issues, but when it comes to movies, I now have a guaranteed safety net. I can sit with a coworker and compare Fincher’s take on Girl With The Dragon Tattoo to the Swedish original. I’ve discussed Argo and it’s redemption of Affleck’s career with my hairdresser. Gone Girl is the commonality of Cape, and everyone has something to say about it.

Gone Girl is the commonality of Cape, and everyone has something to say about it.

Locals who were hired to work on the set or as extras now make use of their coveted bragging rights. Take for instance my friend’s little brother, who met Affleck during a catering event. When I asked him about it, he shrugged, calling the hunky star a “pretty cool dude actually.”

Stories of Fincher’s attention to detail are common. You hear how an extra showed up wearing different shoes than the day before and had to change back into the originals. Or how the crew paid homeowners to grow out their lawns for filming, adding validity to the recession-stricken setting of Amy and Nick’s neighborhood. I even heard they shipped the front door of a local house to L.A. for use in recreating the façade of Dunnes’s fictional home. And, as I mentioned earlier about that scene from “The Bar”, people got used to Fincher’s numerous takes.

It’s now halfway between the time of filming and the release of the finished product. The lull of excitement has residents digesting the experience. As more and more people read the book, concerns appear about having Cape portrayed as a recession-era town; that viewers will think it more similar to North Carthage than we’re comfortable with. A few fear that the movie will be bad, or a flop, despite Fincher’s record of success.

I don’t think this will happen. All bias aside, I think it will be a profound film, full of nuance and intrigue. Judging by the trailer, the cinematography already looks resplendent. I can’t wait to see my hometown thrown up on the silver screen in stark, moody lighting and exquisite framing. And yes, it toys with dark themes and a morbid plot (Fincher probably wouldn’t have directed it otherwise), but even if you don’t care for such material, you should probably still see it. Why? Because they filmed it in my hometown, and I don’t want it to flop.

I think whatever happens, the presence of Gone Girl in Cape’s history is a positive thing. The filming itself provided a welcome, if temporary, boost to the local economy. For long-term effect, the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau is working with other cities that have served as movie sets to make the area more of an attraction. And while he was here, Fincher was nice enough to participate in a lecture and Q&A session with Southeast Missouri University media and film students. I like to think he inspired more than a couple burgeoning filmmakers.

Eventually, those coveted bragging rights mentioned above will extend to all of us. People always ask me where Cape Girardeau, or The Bootheel, or even Missouri is when I tell them it’s where I’m from. Now I can proudly respond, “It’s where they filmed Gone Girl.”

Back in November, when I was still living in Chicago and whining about my misfortune, I couldn’t see anything positive about moving back home (aside from the free rent). Now, after months of hanging out with my parents and family (and cuddling with my dog), I’m a little more optimistic. I have a good job. I have a few friends. I even have time to read some pretty great murder mysteries.

And there’s something else I have to look forward to. Gone Girl premieres October 3, 2014. For the first time since I’ve lived here, Cape will stand on the frontlines of a national event. And, in spite of myself, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Maybe they’ll have a premiere at the local movie theater, and there will be a red carpet. Or maybe we’ll all just wait in line, collectively, communally, for tickets to the midnight show. Either way, I’ll finally be able to catch up with Gone Girl. This time I won’t miss the excitement. I guarantee you I’ll be right there in the middle of the action, happy to be part of it, happy to be home.

Paige Pritchard is The Riveter’s managing editor. Tweet her at @peapodpritchard.