Gone Girl movie - open spoilers

Cafe Society
101

Frankly, if the video cameras had not been present, she would have gotten away with in 100%.

Those of you who are making comments about “modern investigators” haven’t been paying attention to real life cases and Innocence Project cases. Her basic story absolutely will hold up. This reminds me of the Bradley Cooper murder trial, where there were a lot of inconsistencies that the cops never figured out. Didn’t matter, though, they had a few juicy seeming breadcrumbs that were all it took to convince the jury to convict.

And the Nancy Grace look alike…that was truly frightening.

102

Finally sucked it up and saw the thing. Mrs. FtG had read the book so was quite leery of seeing the movie since she thought it sucked.

And the movie “met” her expectations.

Man, what a load of crap. And a 2 and half hour long load.

Plot holes all over the place.

So, she plans out in excruciating detail the frame up. Down to using different pens to write the diary. Reasonably well executed for fiction. But then on various whims changes things over and over. And doesn’t get caught. Completely inconsistent.

Tons of mega stupid things. She shows back up with Doogie’s blood all over her. Is in a hospital treated by doctors. Is released. Then and only then at home is the blood cleaned off her.

I have news for you. At the hospital: Step 1: take pictures of all the blood on her. Step 2: Clean off every last drop. Blood is a biohazard. The hospital staff has to clean it all off. No hospital in America would let someone out like that.

And then there’s the phone call about the woodshed made from the lodge. This is a major error on Amy’s part. Something that would arouse not just the police’s interest but also Tyler Perry’s. Why did this call come from such a weird location? And then the police don’t act on the “man lurking” tip for quite some time. Police either respond right away or they never do.

Ben Affleck, the guy who lets his girlfriend come over to his sister’s house and spends the entire freakin’ night somehow kept this affair secret for well over a year? No. This guy is an idiot. Everyone in town would have known about it within weeks. Completely unbelievable.

And I can go on and on.

I see why Mrs. FtG hated the book. She reads a lot of mysteries and knows when one blows it big time like this.

Then there’s the length. No movie of this ilk needs to be more than 1:40. So it really drags.

Casting: Affleck is a good actor. Wrong role for him. He just isn’t suited to play this kind of character. I had to keep reminding myself that the character had different attributes (or lack thereof) than what Affleck was doing with him.

Virtually all the secondary characters are run-of-the-mill stock TV actors. E.g., David Clennon who plays Amy’s dad is a very generic actor. He might have been good 20 years ago, but his TV appearances of late are pretty poor performances. So the dad is just a blob on the screen. Ditto almost all the others.

Then there’s the elephant in the room: Tyler Perry. Now, I have no problem with his acting abilities in serious stuff. He does decent enough job. But he’s Madea. It distracts from a movie to always be thinking: “Hey, he’s not a fat woman!” People shouldn’t be typecast, but for a supposedly serious award-vying movie like this, it’s a problem.

On the plus side, had two of my favorite actresses: Kim Dickens and Sela Ward. Ward was barely on it and didn’t have much to do. Just a sit and read your lines role. Dickens role started off well but ended up saddled with fail.

Forget the money, I want my time back.

103

Saw it on VOD. A few questions, (not read the book, will do over the new year)

i) Did she ever explain in the book how NPH;s character was able to clean up after her “kidnapping”?

ii) Her pregnancy, it is from artificial insemination, at least thats whats implied. But, did’nt she actually sleep with NPH multiple times anyway. She could have been carrying his child?

iii) Did she in the book have a plan to explain away the weeks that she was hiding with Greta and co, away from NPH? Because, otherwise, there is no real hole that can get her down… Otherwise, its her word against that of a stalker and a guy who was holding her prisoner.

[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
Amy is just one character. She is not “her own gender.” There are strong, stable, admirable women characters in the book and the movie, as well.
[/QUOTE]

Put me off marriage though.

104

To answer #2, she only has sex with NPH that one time after which she slit his throat. I thought it was the same in the movie - that it was the first time.

105

When she pretends to be hurt and imprisoned for the cameras, the scene before that seems to equate “had sex” last night.

106

Ok, read the book now. I will say that book!Nick is similar in nature to Amy, the difference is one of degree. They are both snakes, he is just the less poisonous one. On the other hand Affleck’s less then steller acting chops mean that in the movie, he is merely an asshole to her batshit insane persona.

This makes the movie ending much more dark. In the book, its almost a happy ending and remember the baby in the book was her fallback plan to keep him inline, she had to go for it after she was thwarted by him.
Has bad acting made a film better before?

107

Just saw it tonite On Demand, and while I enjoyed the twists and turns, I found it not only misogynistic, but the last 20 or so minutes of the movie seemed to tell me the writers had nowhere to end it.

While it is the writers right to steer a plotline wherever they want it to go, from a societal perspective now I fear whoever a woman disappears, we now are lead to believe her abusive, drug addicted and/or drug abusing husband didn’t off her for another woman or just because she was sick of him, but the bitch was just setting him up.

As for the last 20 minutes, I was wondering when the “big plot twist” was going to cave in on us (i.e., Ben Affleck and his wife set it all up for some sort of financial gain, or he and his sister set it all up blah blah blah) instead we are left with The Bitch, manipulating her husband through another “pregnancy” and keeping him as a kept man least she spoil the goods on him (I was screaming during the shower scene : RUN AWAY, YOUR BETTER OFF WITH THE WORLD HATING YOU THAN GETTING SLIT IN YOUR JUGULAR WITH AN EXACTO KNIFE BY THIS FEMALE PRAYING MANTIS !!!)

I really enjoyed the movies parody on what Rush Limbaugh calls, in a stand i RARELY agree with him on, the “Drive By Media” as well as the dangers of social media.

But at the end of the day, the writing of the character of Anne Flynne, while brilliantly and very chillingly portrayed by Rosalund Pike, makes me wonder if I just didn’t spend 2 1/2 hours watching “Fatal Attraction” except now Alex Forrest isn’t just some stalker who took a handsome mans affections the wrong way, but an evil, psychotic Succubus all men should beware of lest she such the life-force out of all of our souls, because after all, women are just manipulative bitches, right, fellas?

Disgraceful.

108

The character is Amy Dunne. The novelist, who also wrote the screenplay, is Gillian Flynn. The actress is Rosamund Pike. Sorry, I don’t mean to pick on you, but I had to read that sentence a few times to figure out what was off.

Amy Dunne is a manipulative bitch, sure, but I don’t think the writer meant it as an indictment of all women. Once Flynn sprung the trap with the unexpected twist, the character had to be some kind of evil. Amy Dunne is a mentally unbalanced woman who plays out a revenge fantasy. I thought it was fun. It’s usually a male character who gets to be clever, ruthless and one step ahead of everyone else.

109

Besides, if evil men in movies aren’t considered an indictment of all men, why should an evil woman be considered an indictment of all women?

110

Quite so. As I said upthread, I’ve never thought that Amy is meant to represent all women everywhere, just as male villains (of whom there are many more in fiction since time immemorial) are not representative of all men everywhere. There are heroes and villains on both sides of the gender divide, and always have been.

111

I actually saw both characters as representing the absolute worst in both sexes. They are archetypes of the Crazy Psycho Bitch and the Predatory Misogynist Dirtbag. It’s harder to appreciate this in the movie than in the book, but Nick is damaged much like his wife is. And the ending does not show him to be a victim. Because we’re shown evidence that he actually thrives from the charade that their relationship becomes, the conclusion is that he is not a pitiful victim but rather an eager participant. The trickery of her pregnancy only serves as an excuse for him to stay with her and continue the charade, but it’s clear he’s all in.

The reason this story is gripping is because as toxic as their relationship is, most of us can identify a little with the psychology behind their attraction to each other. They both are in love with what they become when they are in the dating stage. When she stops becoming a thing to be chased and when he stops doing the things that make her feel special, they both become crazy and stupid. Neither of them want what is real because real makes them feel inadequate, bored, and dead inside. These are immature emotions, but ones that are very human.

What this movie does is cleverly show one couple’s response to this relationship malady. In an attempt to punish him, she inadvertently creates a situation wherein he’s compelled to woo her again. At the same time, he ends up getting emotionally high by this wooing, even though ostensibly he is doing it to manipulate her and clear his name. She is taken by him, he is taken by her. They reunite and of course, there is bad tension. But there is good tension, too. This is the stuff of exciting romance.

The movie is an allegory for relationship dynamics and attraction. We all have a bit of Amy and Nick in us, is the takeaway I got.

112

True, but I didn’t think Nick was either a “pitiful victim [or] an eager participant” in what his marriage had become by the end of either book or movie. He was just stuck, due to a toxic combination of his own mistakes and character flaws, Amy’s pathology, the public image of who they were, and Amy’s none-too-subtly implied threat to their child. He was trapped with no way out: he couldn’t reveal the truth about her (hardly anyone would believe him), couldn’t kill her (he’d be the immediate prime suspect again), couldn’t go away (leaving their child to her tender mercies) and couldn’t kill himself (ditto).

113

The story is about deception, including self-deception, and so we need to look deeper. Why would there be clues that his ego was served by the manipulative drama if ultimately, the story resolves with him being trapped by a psycho against his will? I don’t think this ending works for the story that was told because it in effect reduces the whole plot to “crazy bitch fucks over man” when it really is about what happens when two fucked up personalities fall out of infatuation and start hating each other so much it becomes a perverse form of love.

I think this angle is clearer in the book than in the movie, but it still evident in the movie. When he’s telling his twin sister that he’s staying with Amy, you can see him trying to convince her why he has to do it. But his sister knows the truth; her angry tears speak volumes. As does him telling her she’s his voice of reason. He knows she knows.

114

I think there is something in what you say, but he still is not a “pitiful victim [or] an eager participant” by the end.

115

I have a few questions about the story myself:

  1. Why would Desi bother to tell Amy about the cameras? Seems it would make more sense to keep that to himself.

  2. How would they explain that nosy preggo neighbor that befriended Amy didn’t see this Desi fella coming to the house if that was Amy’s new story? If preggy was so convinced Nick killed his wife (based on everything Amy told them) why didn’t she ever seem to question the inconsistency?

  3. How did redneck lady not know it was Amy? Amy was a media darling, her face was everywhere. Somehow she was smart enough to know she wasn’t Nancy, yet didn’t know who she really was. Her calendar with the timeline of her plans was RIGHT THERE.

  4. The shed fulla swag bothered me. Once Nick discovered it, why did he leave it for the cops to inevitably discover? If the stuff was hidden or destroyed, they couldn’t use it against him. Amy wanted him to find it, but had no way to guarantee the cops would. Ditto for the diary; what if Nick was too stupid to find clue three? The house alarm would never get set off, the diary never found.

  5. A lot of Amy’s plan seemed to hinge on not getting caught. She wanted Nick to go to the beach or wherever because he’d be alone and thus have a bad alibi. But what if he came back early? Setting up the fake kidnappings would have taken time. Amy was also so popular I’m shocked NOBODY recognized her; not the guy that sold her the Geo Metro, not the people at the motel, not the guard who told her she couldn’t sleep in the parking lot. I know its just a movie, but this bugs me. She totally gives herself away in how she reacts to news broadcasts.

And finally, this film is the ultimate version of Missing White Girl Syndrome. There is a huge outpouring of support to find Amy. I wonder had she been a black woman in Missouri if people would care as much that some ex New Yorker’s black wife is missing.

116

Why would he keep it to himself? Ostensibly, he informed her so she that she would feel safe from her husband (or others) trying to break into the house. It had the side benefit of letting her know that he would see her if she tried to escape.

Why would the neighbor see Desi? She lived four houses down and it was not like she was running surveillance on Nick and Amy. If you are going to bludgeon and kidnap someone, I would speculate that you might be a little discreet about it.

Apparently in the book they made it clear that she did recognize Amy. In the movie, she may have suspected that was the case, but she did not care.

Nick doing nothing about the shed bothered me as well. It would have made more sense if he had either cleared it out, or informed the police. Doing nothing was an idiotic move. I am guessing that the situation was handled better in the book.

Amy had notes on her calendar to call the tip-line if certain clues had not been found by certain days. One of the reasons she did not want to kill herself right away was so that she could guide the police to the evidence necessary to indict and convict Nick.

Yep.

This point I thought was handled wonderfully. By making Amy the subject of a series of popular books that her parents wrote, it explained why there would be so much national media attention. By making the setting some small town in Missouri, it explained why there would be so much local enthusiastic support. The setting also helped explain why the police, although competent, were unable to put the pieces together and were ultimately sidelined by the FBI.

117

you just explained the entire movie…it’s ok movie for people who don’t really care about characters and subtlety.

118

and a good movie for people who do.

119

Just watched it last night. It’s much more of a* Body Heat* or Double Indemnity than Fatal Attraction. But yeah, the ending wasn’t very good. The whole thing twisted and turned and then… just ended. Everything wrapped up like one of Amy’s presents. Pretty unbelievable that she could have actually gotten away with the murder of NPH’s character.

120

Saw it last night and it gripped me until about the point when Amy showed up at the Affleck home doing her best Carrie imitation. And still, I would have found it a satisfying movie – remarkable directing on Fincher’s part and great performance by Rosamond Pike – but I totally hated the ending. Yes, the movie portrayed Affleck’s character as a passive and pathetic dude ripe for controlling, but it seemed like his arc moved him beyond the guy who just wanted to please everybody. So for him to so easily slip back into that persona at movie’s end, even considering the pregnancy, that failed for me. Granted, in real life, this would strike me as a realistic outcome – I could easily see myself falling into that – but this wasn’t real life; it was quite clearly a movie in the most buttery popcorn of terms. And worse, what the hell was the point of the Katie Couric-looking detective lady? Pack up and leave after all her tough (and smart) talk? Maybe it’s a case of prior movie conditioning, but to me her whole purpose was to be the one that unraveled Amy’s plot, especially when there was plenty of fish smell everywhere. She bails because the Feds show up? I’m sorry, that’s weak sauce.