History YMMV / GoneGirl

** The "Cool Girl" speech has divided feminists over whether Amy is making a good point about women changing themselves into TheLadette to attract men or whether she's just condemning women who don't fit ''her'' ideal of what is proper behavior. The movie subtly argues that Amy is wrong by singling out women, failing to see that humans in general behave this way. This is highlighted by her wrongly identifying a women in a car she passes as a "Cool Girl," someone who plays up to men's fantasies, only for the camera to reveal her passenger is actually another woman. And that's not even getting into Amy's evil, violent actions. And then there is [[TakeAThirdOption a third camp]] that thinks that Amy brings up [[VillainHasAPoint some good points]] and isn't ''entirely'' wrong, but you also probably shouldn't take ''everything'' she says at face value.

** Ellen Abbott's accusing Nick and Go of {{Twincest}}. While she's undeniably a SmarmyHost who likes to make her stories as lurid as possible, [[JerkassHasAPoint could she have been onto something]]? There's definitely something weird about Nick and Margo's relationship.

* RonTheDeathEater: There's a common interpretation of the book ''and'' movie that Nick and Amy are mutually abusive and just as bad as one another. This is especially common in response to the book where Nick is regarded by many fans as "way worse." But in ''both'' cases, despite Nick being a deeply flawed and unlikeable man, it's difficult to take this interpretation seriously. Amy not only [[spoiler:sets up an elaborate scenario to have her husband arrested and, presumably killed]] just because [[spoiler:he was cheating on her]], but also then [[spoiler:murders the very man who was helping her because she wanted a convenient way out of the situation]]. Whether it's a case of DracoInLeatherPants because people legitimately think Amy is witty, funny and cool as hell, or RootingForTheEmpire because people ''know'' Amy is a bad person but she's just too fun of a character, it feels as though people ignore that most of Nick's worst moments – which largely include just ''thinking'' misogynistic things after he's realized Amy's framing him – are fairly boilerplate trauma responses. He's still not a great guy, and jerks around Andie just as much as he does Amy, but he's unambiguously a victim in the story, and yet people act like he and Amy are evenly matched.

** Nick comes across as less of a sociopath in the film; he's prone to emotion, genuinely cares about people, and empathizes. To be sure, he's a schlubby kind of guy and painfully awkward when out of his comfort zone (read: the entire movie), but his faults are presented as more of the garden-variety mid-life crisis type. This more human characterization has the side effect of making the ''already'' dark ending bleaker in the film than in the book. [[spoiler: Book Nick seems excited by Amy and willing and able to manipulate her in turn; film Nick comes across as disgusted but powerless and any fascination with Amy is more akin to StockholmSyndrome than anything else.]]

** It's a bit more difficult to take this view seriously since the 10-year anniversary of the book in which Flynn admitted that she based Nick partially on herself and originally intended to write the book only from his point of view. It also comes across at times like his own admissions of poor qualities come across more as self-deprecating "aw, shucks" moments than legitimate character flaws – things like, "I smile when I get nervous" and "I want people to like me too much."

* RootingForTheEmpire: Some viewers found themselves rooting for [[spoiler:Amy]] anyway, due to her charisma, intelligence, [[CrazyPrepared scheming and planning]] to make [[spoiler:Nick responsible for her disappearance]]. Her backstory as noted in JerkassWoobie helps. Nick's adultery starting all of the trouble doesn't help much.