History Characters / GoneGirl

* TooCleverByHalf: Amy is indeed very socially and technically intelligent, having been able to pull off a complicated scheme with many moving parts and manipulated several people through various {{Batman Gambit}}s into framing Nick for her disappearence and murder. However, due to her high opinion of her own intelligence and her dim view of other people, she manages to screw up her own plan of staying under the radar simply by seriously underestimating some of the people she encounters along the way. She comes up completely short against Greta and Jeff, experienced petty criminals who utterly outmatch her in terms of low cunning, as they quickly realize from a few interactions that she has quite a bit of money on her, is travelling alone, and cannot go to the authorities, allowing them to rob her blind and get away with it completely scot-free. She then turns to Desi for help, only to manage to underestimate how much control she has over him and how dangerous he actually is, forcing her into improvise an escape plan that undermines her original scheme.

* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Invoked -- she spends much of her preparation for her "death" making sure people would miss her, acting friendly and social to neighbors and creating a diary filled with fabricated accounts of her husband abusing her. By the end, only Nick, Margo, Boney, Tanner, Desi's mother, Tommy and Hilary know the truth about her. The general public doesn't have a clue, hailing Amy as a hero and blameless victim.

* FemaleMisogynist: Downplayed. She doesn't hate other women, but she intentionally distances herself from feminine things, partially to avoid being mocked by men like her father.

* {{Tomboy}}: Something of a Deconstruction of one, actually. Growing up with a drunk, misogynistic father has made Go reluctant to be seen as stereotypically feminine for fear of being insulted and belittled by her father like her mother was.
* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Played up and deconstructed between her and Amy, as Amy deliberately plays to people's more feminine expectations of her, while Go deliberately tries to be a tomboy in order to escape mockery by men.

* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: They are not friends, but Nick's sister Go is the "tomboy" to Amy's "girly girl."

* FatalFlaw: Nick's inability to see his love interests for who they really are proves to be his downfall. He lampshades himself that he can't be around angry women, fears becoming a misogynist like his father, and projected a ManicPixieDreamGirl image onto both Amy and Andie and used them to escape from his problems, only to become shocked and disappointed when their flaws and darker sides come to life.

* NotWithThemForTheMoney: To his credit, Nick honestly doesn't seem to have married Amy for the Elliott family fortune; he wasn't even aware she was rich until they'd been dating for awhile, and while he certainly ''enjoyed'' not having to worry about money, even Amy doesn't seem to really believe it's why he married her. He does express reservations about Amy almost entirely emptying their trust fund to help her parents, but he and Amy were both jobless at the time, so his hesitation is, at least, understandable.

* AdaptationalVillainy: Which is not to say that Amy of the book isn't a villain. She is, but while Amy of the book framed her ex boyfriend for rape, Amy of the film [[NightmareFuel let him get convicted; he now can't get a job and is falsely on the sex offender's register.]]

* DitzyGenius: She's not only highly intellectual and witty but a psychological mastermind with a foolproof plan to frame Nick, who knows exactly how to make him walk right into her trap. That doesn't change the fact that she’s a sheltered rich girl who's remarkably naive about money, paying ten dollars per gallon of milk at a gas station without realizing that the clerk is ripping her off and making herself an easy target for robbers by traveling with a belt full of cash. After the inevitable occurs and she's left without a penny, she also fails to realize how going to Desi for help will backfire on her. Nick mentions that one of her blind spots is an inability to see through flattery, since [[TheNarcissist she believes even the most extravagant compliment to be exactly what she deserves]], allowing him to easily lure her home with promises of repentance and undying love.

* DitzyGenius: She's not only highly intellectual and witty but a psychological mastermind with a foolproof plan to frame Nick, who knows exactly how to make him walk right into her trap. That doesn't change the fact that she’s a sheltered rich girl who's remarkably naive about money, paying ten dollars per gallon of milk at a gas station without realizing that the clerk is ripping her off and making herself an easy target for robbers by traveling with a belt full of cash. After the inevitable occurs and she's left without a penny, she also fails to realize how going to Desi for help will backfire on her. Nick mentions that one of her blind spots is an inability to see through flattery, since [[TheNarcissist she believes every compliment to be simply what she deserves]], allowing him to easily lure her home with promises of repentance and undying love.

* {{Determinator}}: [[spoiler:When she makes up her mind to punish somebody, she will get the job done. No matter how long it takes. Or how much effort and research she has to put in. Or how much ''physical injury'' she has to do to herself. As Hilary puts it, "This girl, this little fifteen-year-old ''cracked her own ribs''. Who was going to believe me?"]]
* DitzyGenius: She's not only highly intellectual and witty but a psychological mastermind with a foolproof plan to frame Nick, who knows exactly how to make him walk right into her trap. That doesn't change the fact that she’s a sheltered rich girl who's remarkably naive about money, paying ten dollars per gallon of milk at a gas station without realizing that the clerk is ripping her off and making herself an easy target for robbers by traveling with a belt full of cash. After the inevitable occurs and she's left without a penny, she also fails to realize how going to Desi for help will backfire on her.

* DitzyGenius: She's not only highly intellectual but a psychological mastermind with a foolproof plan to frame Nick, who knows exactly how to make him walk right into her trap. That doesn't change the fact that she’s a sheltered rich girl who's remarkably naive about money, paying ten dollars per gallon of milk at a gas station without realizing that the clerk is ripping her off and making herself an easy target for robbers by traveling with a belt full of cash. After the inevitable occurs and she's left without a penny, she also fails to realize how going to Desi for help will backfire on her.

* TheUnfavorite: She believes her parents favored Nick -- her father, because Nick's male. Nick sees where she's coming from there.

* JerkassHasAPoint: He's not usually very polite when he's making a point, or calling Nick out for doing something dumb, but he's usually completely right.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Exploited and played with. Tanner's name is ''synonymous'' with wife killers, which means that Nick both feels he has to hire him and really doesn't want to. Any time his name is mentioned, people instantly assume Nick is guilty, but he is a brilliant lawyer.

** That said, the movie also glosses over the scene in which Amy's parents need to borrow from her trust fund, relegating it to an unseen conversation; in the book, it's a painful scene in which Amy's parents demonstrate that their financial hardships are due in large part to their selfish and ill-informed decisions (overspending, borrowing too much) and rush Amy to wire them the money ASAP because they can't even survive a few more ''days,'' making it really seem like Amy had no choice in the matter. You can actually see in the novel why Amy is even more pissed at them. In the film, their situation is mainly caused by their publisher dropping them, and Amy's approach to it appears much more pragmatic.
* AesopCollateralDamage: InUniverse, they're ''extreme'' collateral damage to Amy's plan to punish Nick, since they have to believe their only child has been murdered by her own husband, and are scared out of their minds. Amy acknowledges this in the book, but says she doesn't really care. In fact, she even decides that they deserve it, since they put so much pressure on her to be "Amazing Amy". As Amy puts it, the best part about her plan is that "everyone gets punished".

* EvilIsPetty: Pretty much all her actions are [[DisproportionateRetribution completely over the top reactions to minor slights]]. The crowing example is probably framing her former boyfriend, Tommy O'Hara, for raping her, simply because Tommy felt uncomfortable with her controling nature and politely asked her to give him some space. She also takes time to spit in Greta's drink after Greta unknowingly insulted her.

* SpitefulSuicide: Her plan was dependent on her taking her own life at the end, something she seems perfectly willing to do to hurt Nick. When her plan falls apart due to the unforseen interferrence from Jeff and Greta forces her to improvise, and result in her ultimately not going through with it.

* HollywoodHomely: A rare InUniverse example. Nick points out that she isn't really ugly, but rather, she's cute in an unusual sort of way, comparing her to screwball comedy heroines of the [=1930s=]. He theorizes that she would've been considered attractive if she was born in another era, rather than one that favors slender, ultra-feminine women.

* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Played up and deconstructed between she and Amy, as Amy deliberately plays to people's more feminine expectations of her, while Go deliberately tries to be a tomboy in order to escape mockery by men.

* AdaptationalUgliness: Downplayed a great deal, but even Nick is taken aback by his handsomeness in the book, but Neil Patrick Harris is obviously going for the snakier, less clear good looks.

* AbusiveParents: Not intentionally, but basing a fictional character off of your real daughter and making that character absolutely perfect in all the ways your daughter is not is not exactly what you'd call good parenting. It gets worse when Amy disappears -- they act more like their fictional child has disappeared than their real one.

** Marybeth also gets her tragic backstory omitted from the movie; she's had more than a half-dozen miscarriages and stillbirths prior to Amy, giving her a FreudianExcuse for how she treated Amy. Even Amy admitted that Marybeth compartmentalized the losses relatively healthily, rarely dwelling and only mourning their would-be birthdays, which Amy delighted in disrupting.

* TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes: Both of them are child psychologists, but are borderline-emotionally abusive towards their daughter, passive-aggressively expressing disappointment in her by using Amazing Amy to compensate for her flaws and shortcomings, not realizing that doing this could cause psychological damage to the real Amy (which it actually did). They also both fail to notice (or maybe even choose to ignore) Amy's sociopathic traits.

* StageMom: Not in the traditional sense of course, but they are both a variation called the "Script Mother" (and Father in this case) which refers to writers who see their children as muses for their work, but not in a good way as they tend to either use humiliating events and exaggerated personal problems as inspiration or as seen by Elliots here passive-aggressively use the fictional versions as idealized versions of their offspring.

* AbusiveParents: His father was extremely emotionally abusive to every member of his family, and has left Nick with very poor examples. Completely averted by his mother, who he loves very, very much.

* FatalFlaw: Nick's inability to see his love interests for who they really are prove to be his downfall. He lampshades himself that he can't be around angry women, fears becoming a misogynist like his father and put both Amy and Andie as a ManicPixieDreamGirl and escape from his problems, only to become shocked and disappointed when their flaws and darker sides come to life.

* HeManWomanHater: He very much ''doesn't'' want to be one, but shades of his father's own rabid misogyny comes through every now and again.

* HiddenHeartOfGold: Nick at his worst can be as manipulative, as dastardly, as deceiving as Amy can be. What puts Nick ever so slightly out on top? He seems to genuinely care for at least ''some'' people like Margo and his child-to-be.

* LovingAShadow: Both Amy and Andie seemed to be a ManicPixieDreamGirl at first, only to prove that they were a lot more flawed and complex than Nick cared to know or believe.

* OneHeadTaller: In the film as Ben Affleck is 6'4 and Rosamund Pike is 5'9.
* PapaWolf: He stays with Amy when he finds out she's pregnant, so he can protect their unborn child from her.

* SadisticChoice: Amy gives him one in the finale -- either he leaves her and she raises his child to despise him for abandoning them and the public turn on him, or he stays married to a psychopath in order to protect his kid from her.

* AbusiveParents: Amy's are of the emotionally abusive variety -- even Nick admits that using Amazing Amy as the perfect avatar to your actual child's and making her successful everywhere Amy fails is ''not'' how you raise a mentally healthy, stable person.

* BigBad: She faked her kidnapping and set up everything to get at Nick.

* FemaleMisogynist: Subtle, but it's there. Amy has a lot of negative beliefs about men and women and how they socialize. When Greta and her boyfriend, Jeff, rob her, Amy immediately writes off Greta and thinks that Jeff put her up to it; choosing to address him instead. She is completely stunned when Greta freely admits that the robbery was hers idea, and then proceeds to physically hold her down as she pulls up her dress and yanks off her money belt. She also mocks Go for how needy she is with Nick. When she sees Andie on TV she goes into a short angry SlutShaming rant about her (though it's not surprising, given Andie did seduce her husband).

* TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes: Both of them are child psychologists, but are borderline-emotionally abusive towards their daughter, passive aggressively expressing disappointment in her by using Amazing Amy to compensate for her flaws and shortcomings, not realizing that doing this could cause psychological damage on the real Amy (which it actually did). They also both fail to notice (or maybe even choose to ignore) Amy's sociopathic traits.

* SmallRoleBigImpact: She's just some random girl that Amy befriends while on the run, but her action utterly torpedoes Amy's plan and forces the latter to come to Desi for help, which enables her [Amy] to create a perfect cover story for her disappearance once she changes her mind about killing Nick.

* SmallRoleBigImpact: The story would have been radically different had it not been for her actions.

!!!'''Played by:''' Creator/MissyPyle