Rarely do I find the patience to sit through a movie lasting upwards of two and a half hours. Long movie syndrome: when the eyes of moviegoers start to glaze over and all of a sudden the curtains around the screen become more interesting than the movie itself.

I strapped myself in for David Fincher’s latest, Gone Girl, expecting roughly the same experience. At two hours and twenty-five minutes, I was sure my interest would peak at less than halfway through. To my surprise and delight, Gone Girl made use of every minute, placing the moviegoer straight into the mystery.

On the fifth anniversary of their rocky marriage, Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike) turns up missing, accompanied by what appears to be a botched cover up of a murder scene in her house, placing her husband, Nick (Ben Affleck), as the prime suspect.

Gone Girl is a movie adaptation of the book by the same name written by Gillian Flynn, who is also billed as the screenwriter for the movie, and without the original writer’s influence, I doubt the plot would’ve been as well-rounded.

Gone Girl is intense with a capital I. It’s gory and highly sexual and exhilarating and everything your parents probably don’t feel comfortable with you watching for two hours and twenty-five minutes. That said, go see it anyway. Gone Girl is a shining example of what the modern mystery movie should be, and that’s a story that mystifies as much as it encourages the viewer to crack the case before the characters, using every second to its advantage. It’s like long movie syndrome never even existed.