I knew this movie wouldn’t go away.

On its opening weekend, I issued my spoiler-free review of director David Fincher’s “Gone Girl,” based on the novel by Gillian Flynn. I knew as soon as I saw the film that it would be the movie everyone had to see, and three weeks and almost $110 million later, the debate about my review hasn’t stopped, especially on Twitter. I’m clearly in the minority on this movie.

Now it is time to tackle to the controversy head on. Because the plot of the film is so integral to this discussion, so this is your warning if you haven’t seen it yet. The only way for someone to see this movie is to experience it without knowing what the big twist is — because that’s not only what people are talking about the most but it’s also the precise moment that the film loses all of its authority.

Again: Those who haven’t seen or read “Gone Girl” and want to, read no further. You’ve been warned.

There is a difference between form and content. The form of “Gone Girl” is as prestigious as Hollywood gets. Directed by two-time best director nominee Fincher, shot by two-time best cinematography nominee Jeff Cronenweth, and scored by Oscar winners Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, its pedigree is impeccable.

Its $61 million production budget can be seen everywhere — the look and feel of “Gone Girl” is top-notch professional. (Best screenplay winner and director nominee Ben Affleck is also in the movie, but he’s only acting — not his strong suit — so that doesn’t count.)

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But the best craftsmen in the world can’t hide the ugly truth about “Gone Girl”: It’s a piece of overheated, button-pushing trash.

The problem lies with the content and Fincher’s inability to make any sort of reasonable sense of Flynn’s agenda, which is completely at odds with her “characters.” Fincher’s tone is all over the place, and the story is too, veering wildly from murder mystery to serious domestic drama to half-hearted satire to gory suspense thriller to who knows what. I don’t think even David O. Russell (“Three Kings,” “American Hustle”), that master of genre-melding, could handle the incongruities of this messy screenplay, never mind the book.

I’ll cut to the chase.

After a huge amount of teasing, it is revealed that Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike), the missing “girl” of the story, is an Alex Forrest-level psychopath. Not only is she a furious woman scorned but also a criminal mastermind that could rival the Joker from “The Dark Knight” who is able to see far into the future and anticipate every move of the law, the husband who she’s framing, and the news media. All this, and yet somehow she’s undone by a couple of trailer-trash rednecks who steal all her money and leave her behind.

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Before the big, dumb reveal, “Gone Girl” is a compelling examination of what it means to be married today. The doomed couple’s romance starts with a sex-filled meet-cute and ends with Amy’s husband Nick (Affleck) taking serious advantage of what remains of his wife’s goodwill.

Between the bars, there are shockingly revealing diary entries from Amy with all kinds of angry insight about her position as a married woman. It’s venomous. It’s pointed. It rings true. (The “cool girl” speech from the novel is infamous for good reason.)

Here’s the problem: It’s all an act. She wrote it all to frame Nick.

Flynn’s desire to create a twisty suspense thriller overrides all logic and character in favor of a hollow plot device that robs Amy of her authority as a dissatisfied spouse. In the screenplay, she is revealed to be not only someone with a habit of framing innocent lovers for wrongdoing but also a criminal genius who can pin her murder on Nick and then go slash the throat of another man in a graphically violent struggle.

Whatever authority Amy wielded as a reliable narrator is gone — her person reduced to a psychopath, and our sympathies shift to her vacant, self-centered husband Nick. (At least he hasn’t killed anybody!) Ugh.

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How dare she?

Flynn’s cheap reversal undermines everything that was earnest about “Gone Girl,” and turns it into an exercise. In “The Sixth Sense,” the theme of the film depended on us realizing Bruce Willis was dead the whole time. The movie was telling us that in many different ways, over and over. When it dawned on us, it rang true. Yes, it is hard to let go, we said to ourselves. Mourning takes time, and this guy clearly hasn’t gotten over it yet.

All we learn about Amy Dunne is that she’s been a psycho her entire life, and all of her practice with other men has been leading up to this masterplan. Nothing after the reveal is remotely believable (and the “satire” is feeble at best — Nancy Grace; really?), so all the serious discussion of gender politics are out the window and what we’re left with is a silly, trashy, twisty movie for twists’ sake.

And haven’t we had enough of that? Or do you want Tim Burton to make another “Planet of the Apes”?

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