Warning: Spoilers!
Last Tuesday, Paul and I saw the much-anticipated movie Gone Girl, starring Ben Affleck and
Rosamund Pike. It was essentially a disturbing yet brilliant neo-noir portrayal
of the very dysfunctional marriage of Amy and Nick Dunne, opening with Amy’s
disappearance on their fifth wedding anniversary. We learn the backstories of
both characters - Amy’s angst is revealed via journal entries; Nick’s tale seems
to introduce a somewhat well-meaning guy. We get into Amy’s head; alternately,
we learn that Nick is admittedly clueless about Amy; he doesn’t know her blood type;
in fact he had no idea who her friends are. It’s obvious that he’s going to be
framed for her abduction and murder, although the state of Nick’s house when he
returns to find Amy gone is obviously staged. If you’ve read the book, you know
that Amy has faked her own disappearance; the movie doesn’t spell out her
motives as clearly as the book does.
The book gets the reader to side with Amy at first, which I
think makes the plot twists much more interesting and the tension more
effective. We feel sorry for her as we learn that her academic parents have
created a children’s book series entitled Amazing
Amy, starring an idealized version of their less-than perfect daughter. We
feel her pain as she laments that she is unloved. In the movie, it’s Amy we
hate from the get-go; she’s depicted as an arrogant New Yorker who considers it
slumming to have to move to Missouri with her husband because of his elderly
parents’ illnesses. In the movie, I would have liked to have seen more detail spelled
out about Amy’s anger at being transplanted, as well as her ongoing distress,
spilled into her diary, over how convinced she is that Nick no longer loves
her. I also wish there had been more than just a quick cut to show the audience
that Nick had an affair. Yes, these elements are there in the movie, but subtleties
are easy to miss when you’re just starting to sort out the characters and pick
up the rhythm of the cinematic style. Maybe I’m getting spacy and literal-minded
in my old age, but if something major is happening, I want to have a clear
sense of the hows and the whys.
The book is better. You don’t want to miss Gillian Flynn’s
brilliant prose; it’s written in first person and even Paul, who loathes this
POV, pronounces the writing spectacular. Flynn also wrote the screenplay for
the movie, which is why I’m so confused by my mixed reactions. As I stated
earlier, the film version emphasizes Amy’s vileness from the get go, with
subtler references to Nick’s defects of character. The book lets us see what
jerks they both are early on. With the exception of the female detective and
Nick’s twin sister, Margo (nicknamed “Go”), the characters have no redeeming
qualities. I liked the cat, of course, but at the end, I had a feeling that he,
too, was in on the whole thing all along. I wonder why Gillian Flynn made this
subtle alteration?
I've read articles online stating the percentage of women
who, after seeing this film, turn completely against the whole idea of
marriage. That just makes me shake my head – there is nothing of love in the
marriage between Nick and Amy. I have no problem with the much-criticized
ending; in my mind, they deserve each other. I want to see it again, because
the opening credits scroll over a backdrop of stills that have relevance to the
story.
Dad always used to tell us kids, “I get enough messages that
work every day – when I go to a movie, I want to be entertained.” I’ve felt
that way at times; however, unlike Dad, I do enjoy a good horror movie or psychological
thriller and I don’t mind being shocked. Paul and I both concluded that Gone Girl definitely falls under the
category of psychological horror. But this movie is insidious. It crawled
inside my head and inside my body. I usually love the genre, but after seeing
this twisted, dialogue-ridden film, we both felt almost hypnotized into darkness;
it was a hard feeling to shake. We chose to indulge in cheesecake at TGI Friday’s
- the perfect antidote to 149 minutes of ugly people doing ugly things.
Final note: Amy’s hair, in the beginning, is obviously a wig
– and a bad one. She looks much better after her haircut; I’m sure that the new
“do” was Rosamund Pike’s real hair.
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