Headlining a movie unfortunately means that everything is your fault. That’s why on the set of his new film, “Gone Girl,” Ben Affleck did what he could to ensure authenticity.
“He was asking questions because he wanted to make sure the things people were doing were correct,” says Matt Sigloch, a former Marine who served as a law enforcement consultant on the crime pic. “That way, [fans] wouldn’t come up to him later and say, ‘Oh, I saw that movie. Great movie, but all the procedures and FBI protocols were horrible.’ ”
“Gone Girl,” hitting theaters Friday after premiering last week at the New York Film Festival, is an adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s best-selling 2012 novel about the search for a missing woman (Rosamund Pike). Her husband (Affleck) returns home on the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary to find the house in disarray and his wife vanished. The mystery ignites a media frenzy and suspicion falls on the husband.
As the story moves along, though, it becomes clear that not everything is as it seems — and it’s probably safe to say that the story’s controversial resolution will shock a large portion of the audience, and anger the rest.
What isn’t in doubt is that for a crime thriller like “Gone Girl” to work, the details have to be accurate. That struggle began when Flynn was writing the book. (She also wrote the movie’s screenplay.)
The former “Entertainment Weekly” journalist understandably didn’t know much about police procedure, so she turned to Emmet Helrich, a longtime Vermont detective whom Flynn met through a friend. Helrich assisted Flynn with the author’s two previous books — 2006’s “Sharp Objects” and 2009’s “Dark Places” — and is thanked in the acknowledgments.
Some of Helrich’s guidance was about administrative issues, including how cops would be involved in an investigation and what kind of uniforms they’d be wearing. Other questions were about police procedures, and the information seemed to help steer the story.
For example, would the police urge Affleck’s character to hold a press conference, pleading for information about his missing wife (as he does in both the book and movie)?
Helrich’s answer to Flynn was yes — it may help reveal the true perpetrator. “Remember, the more he talks and rambles on, the more clues he’s giving out,” Helrich wrote to the author. “No matter how tight he may think his alibi is, he’s going to confuse things in the myriad renditions.”
Another question Flynn had: Can police arrest someone for murder without a body?
“Yes, but it requires a ton more evidence,” Helrich wrote. Things to look for might be the husband’s fingerprints on the underside of a coffee table lying on its side, indicating that he flipped it over. Or smears of the wife’s blood on the kitchen floor.
“What outside killer would take the time to clean up blood?” Helrich asks.
Sigloch, who runs a California-based advisory company for TV and film productions, helped stage that key scene in the movie. Affleck’s character comes home to find his living room furniture toppled, blood on the floor and his wife missing. He calls the police to investigate.
Sigloch’s main piece of advice to director David Fincher (“The Social Network,” “Fight Club”) and the filmmakers was to keep the crime scene sanitized. Anyone on the scene would be required to wear gloves and as few people as possible should be walking around.
“In the film business, they think the more people they show, the better, because they think it looks dramatic,” Sigloch says. “It drives me nuts. You have all of these people crossing in the background, and you go, ‘What the hell are they doing?’ ”
Keeping a potential crime scene pristine is paramount. From there, the cops would look for any notes or clues left lying around. Logs of outgoing and incoming calls would be checked, and the home’s computers would be searched to see when the missing person last signed on.
When a suspect is finally identified, that standard of police thrillers — the interrogation — is likely to follow.
The most important thing, Helrich explained to Flynn, is for the cops to act like they’re the perp’s “best buddy” to build rapport. Pretend that you’re on his side and sympathize with what he’s going through.
“Given how you set the stage and made him feel warm and fuzzy, no question would be really out of bounds if delivered like a friend and not accusatory,” Helrich wrote.
Then you hit him with the hard stuff. Helrich suggests prefacing the tough questions with, “You know I hate to bring this up, but you wouldn’t think I was doing my job if I didn’t . . . cover all the bases.”
Keep the suspect talking. If the person is hiding something, his story will eventually change, and you can call him on his lie.
Sigloch agrees, adding that questions should be phrased as simply as possible, with no wiggle room. Yes-or-no questions are best. Did you go to work today? Did you kill your wife?
Letting the suspect go free is also an effective technique, believe it or not.
“You want them to think you think they’re the last person who did it,” Helrich says.
Then the police continue to check in with the suspect, under the guise of getting additional information, until the perp ultimately slips up.
One actual missing persons case took Helrich some 20 years to wrap up. A young Vermont woman disappeared. It turned out, a male acquaintance told her that her boyfriend was getting out of jail in Danbury, Conn. He offered to drive the girl, and she was never seen or heard from again.
“We just figured he did it,” Helrich says.
The driver claimed the missing girl had gotten out of his car in Springfield, Mass., and that he played no part in her disappearance. He was still convicted and sent to prison for abduction, because he drove the girl over state lines.
Years later, Helrich visited the suspect in jail, and the convict finally confessed to the murder.
That case just goes to show that when it comes to most crimes, the simplest explanation is the most likely.
Twisty, complicated narratives like the one in “Gone Girl” don’t really happen.
“It takes so much forethought to get all these details in place,” Helrich says. “Who has the time for that?”