Gone Girl (Film)

Oh yes, definitely read the book - the chapters alternate between Nick and Amy so you get both their points of view, but they're both pretty unreliable. I though it was a lot better than the film, to be honest!

Oh so in the book you get to see the 'real' Amy too then? Perhaps I should read it :)

That's the thing, isn't it - she had no idea how to be herself, because she was either "Amazing Amy" or the "cool girl" or Nick's perfect wife, or... what? All that was left was the dark side of her personality.

They're Whoops.

nooka Yes! In the book the first half of her diary entries are supposed to be found and read to incriminate him - the second half are her actual voice and very different.

Her parents are theatrically devoted to each other and made their fortune via the Amazing Amy kid's books where the idealised Amy gets right all the things the real Amy gets wrong so she's convinced she and by extension, everyone else, has to be perfect or their not trying hard enough.

She sounds a lot more interesting in the book ...

Yes, that was totally my issue with it TheOriginalNit, it also made her actions somehow less interesting because it felt like she was almost playing out a trope of 'woman scorned'.

UsedtoBe is the idea that she played a role instead of being herself then? And was complaining that she thought Nick had done the same but wasn't keeping up with it? So that "Cool Girl' stuff is entirely self inflicted then?

In the film her parents come across as very cold and her mother as very controlling. Hardly a relationship to idealize!

I like interesting female villains too, I think the problem is that the film is so much from Nick's point of view Amy feels very one dimensional.

Amethyst I know! I meant she felt he had betrayed her by not coming up to snuff as the perfect husband to her perfect wife, by not living up to her parents ideal partnership ... He forgot significant dates, he misremembered special moments - she felt she deserved better ( This is from the book, I've not seent the film )

I actually like a nuanced and nasty female lead - It's refreshing.

The reaction to Gone Girl reminds me a bit of the reaction to We Need to Talk About Kevin - lots of shouting that it was misogynist because it had a female protagonist who wasn't fluffy and loving and nurturing

I don't think that was anyone's problem with Kevin: which is also a book I really enjoyed. But to be fair, it's central thesis question is: 'are some kids just bad, or is it all their mothers' fault?', which is a touch problematic.

I did actually enjoy the book a lot, despite my problem with the rape thing.

But it's not that I'm saying 'you should only have nice fluffy women or else it's not fair'; it's 'maybe don't have a film with this kind of dangerous narrative about faking rapes at a time when most people seem to think false allegations are much higher than they are, and rape is still under reported with a low conviction rate: it's not very helpful, and I have to wonder why'.

Do people actually get that Amy's diary isn't meant to be the 'true' narrative? She wrote it retrospectively to be as damning to nick as possible: we are snot supposed to buy the whole thing about her changing for him and then being let down....

The thing that troubled me about Gone Girl is that the 'cool girl' speech just didn't ring true. Because the narrative jumps from the first days of love to the last days of hate you don't see how they actually behaved together. Where is the evidence that she changed for Nick? She appeared to me to be in control most of the time. If she chose to play a part it was her choice, I didn't see much pressure put on her. She chose to be with nick, if he wasn't the sort of guy, or didn't lead the life she wanted then why marry him? The only thing that happens where she didn't have much say was the move, but it is shown just after she unilaterally gives her money away, so felt more like a sign of them drifting than anything else.

But I've only seen the film and understand the book was more nuanced. I enjoyed the film at the time, it was my dh who was really uncomfortable about it, and when we started to discuss it I realised that it was such a MLA set up. I don't really understand the defense either, I don't think that the character is so radical or that women are always portrayed as nice. Plus in the end Amy is just a psycho-bitch, abet one that leads a great trail.

Totally agree about the one woman representing all women thing though.

I love Lionel Shriver too. I've heard her speak and she is just so razor sharp and generally awesome, I fell quite a bit in love.

She has two alternative futures books IIRC - the one about the snooker player and Big Brother.

I can't bear Patricia Cornwell! (Sorry, ranty and irrelevant!)

The reaction to Gone Girl reminds me a bit of the reaction to We Need to Talk About Kevin - lots of shouting that it was misogynist because it had a female protagonist who wasn't fluffy and loving and nurturing.

As far as I'm concerned, both books depict facets of the experience of being a woman that are not much explored (hopefully because they are quite uncommon!). But they also explore things like ambivalence about motherhood, the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't tyranny of the "cool girl" thing, and so on.

Usedtobefeckless - I think it's very simplistic to suggest that Amy is only angry with Nick because he shagged another woman. She's angry with him because he's taken away her life; because she's reinvented herself to please him and ended up with shit.

I thought the end of the book was a bit feeble - she's had her revenge for his betrayal so why not just dump him and move on?

Don't really know a lot about her!

It's a bit weird though for a female novelist who claims to define feminism to be especially interested in that one quite specific male fear, if it is one... And if it is one, it's one that's certainly exacerbated and given false grounds by narratives like this one.

The link above seems to take Amy's diary in the book as an actual narrative of what's supposed to have happened, whereas I think in the text we assume that quite probably Nick didn't go to a strip club! and Amy wasn't cool about him staying out etc.

yy theoriginalsteamingnit that is my main problem with it. because when you think of the number of books that feature this (vezzie i think explored this on another thread) it seems to be higher than the reality in terms of proportion compared with rapists not being reported or convicted in literature, at least among those books that are popular and/or revered

also there seems to be a perception that falsifying rape is the worst thing a woman can do, the ultimate evil act

Ah Phaedral, you don't get why we think the "cool wife" issue is good.

I do NOT mean she is cool, or great.

I thought the rant from this character about being a "cool girlfriend" was good, she said something like being fed up with being "the cool wife, the wife who loves cheap lager and hanging with the lads, who loves stuffing her face with pizza and is not a diet bore, yet remains miraculously a size 6, who just loves giving blowjobs and is all round cool".

She rebels against this "cool wife" (ie ideal woman) image.

The "cool wife" has been discussed before this film on MN.

I don't mean to say the character is cool, after all she is a psycho murderer!

Don't know if I have clarified it?

The problem I have with the book (and it's there in other Flynn books, too) is the idea of the woman who pretends to have been raped, not the cool girl thing at all.

The film and book both suggest that it doesn't matter how persuasive the forensic evidence, you can never be entirely sure a woman hasn't gone to huge and improbably lengths to pretend she's been raped to secure her own ends.